VERDICT: The nature of loss both personal and planetary become intertwined in Ramzi Bashour’s mordantly comic drama about a man returning home after his father’s death.
Bashir (Nadim Shartouny) is in the middle of recording a television interview about scientific research concerning insects and drought when he receives news of his father’s death. Despite rushing back to his family home in rural Lebanon to console his mother, it is the issue of environmental peril that he continues to fixate on in Ramzi Bashour’s gentle and funny meditation on grief, The Trees. Pitting cultural tradition against an ecological emergency, Bashour’s film manages to both comment on the exasperation felt by conservationists, and deftly reflect on the way we cope with bereavement.
Bashir is in his family home in the middle of funereal duties when he spots some discolouration on the leaves of an olive tree standing outside the window. To the frustration of his friend Raffi (Saseen Kawzally), Bashir will not let it drop and continually interrupts solemn moments to discuss, or even examine, the local trees. The film’s humour comes primarily in these scenes as Bashir is both incensed by their apathy, and they are equally incensed by his lack of consideration. For Bashir, it ranges from the willful ignorance of a young TV producer interviewing him about droughts, all the way through to his family’s insistence on respectful silence when he’s trying to convince them to act. For his uncle (Ghazaros Altonian), Bashir’s constant needling becomes too much.
Although the affliction being suffered by the trees is bacterial, the indifference shown to their plight can be read as a microcosm of the general lack of concern for, and interest in, the effects of climate change – and this is surely what fuels Bashir’s fervour. However, his obsession with saving something that is slowly dying, and his reaction in the final scene when the trees’ fate is effectively sealed by an entirely natural intervention, are also clearly a projection of his personal turmoil. In this way, The Trees manages to both highlight the importance of action and, at the same time, reminds us how to let go. All with a wry smile on its face.
Director, producer, screenplay: Ramzi Bashour
Cinematography: Alfonso Herrera-Salcedo
Editor: Hasan Hadi
Sound: Mohamad Khreizat
Art Direction: Sara Saleh
Cast: Nadim Shartouny, Saseen Kawzally, Fadia Tannir, Ghazaros Altonian
Venue: Karlovy Vary (Pragueshorts at KVIFF)
In Arabic
22 minutes
