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.

One of the best movies I have ever seen. A visually beautiful, modern fairy-tale. This movie can be enjoyed as a comedy with a witty plot and a perfect cast, and, as an essay in the history of culture with archetypical characters and situations. Sulik has a distinctive style of his own, which he continues to develop also in his latest work, "Orbis Pictus", but I think "Garden" is his best movie so far. If you ever get a chance to see it, do so - you will not regret.

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.

If you think movie in which nothing really happens must be boring... forget it. It's non-action and calm, but far from ,,artistic" and ,,intelligents-only" ones. It's hard to say what is it about (i have heard something about ,,seeking yourself" :-), because you simply sit and watch and after the movie you find yourself smiling to people around you - without necessarily for thinking about ,,what it meant and what it means for me".