Taming the Garden

Absolutely fascinating, beautifully shot, very poetic and extremely infuriating.

[An] extraordinary, savagely poetic film.

[An] extraordinary film...

Magnificent visuals and a moving tale of arboreal anthropomorphism.

[A] fascinating and deadpan film...

Providing a devastating metaphor for a world gone mad, this is a poetic, provocative example of how a hard-hitting documentary tug on the communal conscience can also be wittily artistic.

This believe-it-or-not documentary’s principal figure manages to stay offscreen, yet he is unquestionably the “star,” as his will virtually alters the landscape of the country he was (briefly) Prime Minister of a decade ago.

Taming the Garden is harrowing and haunting. Its beauty as a film only makes the deeply sad, horrendously selfish story of utter destruction that much more upsetting.

Taming the Garden is a consciously composed documentary that tries to communicate through observation. An eye-catching watch.

Well-composed though its frames uniformly are, much of Jashi’s film lies flat: the stage is set, but rarely does anything interesting manifest within its borders.