The Garden

Jakub is a teacher living in a flat with his father. After some quarrels he is asked to leave. He found a place to live at his grandfather's raddled house among fields in the countryside. Jakub starts to live a calm life, repairing the house and big garden. From time to time he encounters strange visitors - man who wants to be saint and wants Jakub to wash his feet, man who exchanges his broken car for Jakub's pretty good car etc. And mainly he has one regular visitor....magical girl, Helena. Not working he's fired from his job and decides not to go back to the city. Sometimes his father comes to visit him and they relationship gets better. Jakub starts to teach at the local school and stays with Helena. Just watch the poetry of this jewel of Slovak cinematography. You're gonna love it.

Martin Sulik's poetic vision of reality offers an interesting probe into the relationship between an elderly father (Marian Labuda) and his son Jakub (Roman Luknar) in his early 30's. The main story is happening in the old garden, which belonged to Jakub's grand father. In this mysterious place he finds the peace he was looking for so desperately. What is even more important - the father and the son finally find the way to each other. Like in other Sulik's movies, the plot, story and tension are not the most important. This kind of poetic cinematography is more about the mood and quite hardly identifiable joy coming from "no one knows what". A timeless independent movie. Good work.

A film about origins and ordinary mysteries. About the nuances of childhood. About freedom. A school teacher and his father. A young woman. A girl. And a garden. A poem about roots and happiness. It is difficult to describe this movie. The story of Jakub is only self definition. Few parts, some characters as steps to real image of reality, trees and ants, magic and exile, knowledge and answers. Small drops of a spring rain. And the fly. It is a form of soul song. And shadow of lost ages. A fairy tall with taste of apples and summer vacation. Nothing complicated. Maybe, a Proust madlene. That movie type about nothing and all. A travel to memories and slice of silence. And nostalgics bones of a far world.

Every time I see this movie, my love for it grows. It is one of my treasures on VCR. It confronts you with life and living life, but not in a cynic way, which is often the case in film and literature. It shows the beauty and mystique of this world without being pretentious. The movie contains a great sense of humor, because humans are strange creatures with funny methods of approaching life and how they try to make sense of it. You have to love them for it, in spite or because of the mistakes they make.

Have you ever dreamt about Love ? The one which comes out of nowhere, turns your world upside down, heals all your wounds and gives your life a meaning ? Now this movie is about a love like this. It is a contemporary romantic fairy tale with a good sense of humor achieved by not taking itself too seriously. You won't regret seeing it.