The series of striking and memorable visuals of magnificent trees being uprooted and transported by land and water that punctuate Salome Jashi’s impressive feature doc can appear amusingly surreal at times, but at heart they highlight the power of one wealthy individual to rove around rural Georgia and take away trees that have been part of remote communities for many years, sometimes centuries.
The fact that on the whole there is little opposition to what is happening makes it even more striking when it comes to noting the simple disparity between wealth and poverty.
The film – which screened at Sundance and Berlin – opens on the rugged yet unspoiled coastline of western Georgia, where locals happily fish on the shoreline and where little has changed for generations. The bleak tranquillity is broken by the arrival of hefty diggers and a team of men. A tree is carefully chosen, delicately raised from the ground with roots protected and the tree transported to the water’s edge where it is placed on a barge. It floats serenely across the horizon and fishermen go about their business trying to catch fish from the shore.
These vast trees, some as tall as 15-story buildings, are being excavated for a wealthy and powerful individual who is having them transported to his private garden. The metaphor of ‘uprooting’ reflects the theme of forced migration and puts up a mirror to the needs and values of society in modern-day Georgia.
While the film makes a point of never really detailing the man’s identity, it becomes clear that he is actually Bidzina Ivanishvili, a Georgian politician, billionaire businessman, philanthropist and the country’s richest man, who was Prime Minister of Georgia from October 2012 to November 2013. The trees are for the expansive gardens of his estate in Shekvetili, a village on the Black Sea. He has said that collecting large trees is his hobby and favourite pastime and that he needs them to set up a unique dendrological park.
The process of uprooting and transporting the trees involves tractors, cranes, trucks, bulldozers, barges and ships, and naturally enough their removal has a massive and residual impact on the small rural communities. Many of the trees fit into the family narrative of these villages – as one old woman states: ”I planted that tree when I was 25.” But the truth is that they need the money, and Ivanishvili is clearly generous.
The final scenes of this elegantly made – and rather non-judgmental – film are of the trees in their new location where they are tended by an army of gardeners and set amidst beautifully manicured lawns. Pink flamingos loiter on the nearby lakes, and as the gardening team head out on lawnmowers there is a real sense that they are in a perfect location. Whether they are remembered at all in their original villages is not clear…the only requirement of the tree’s is to successfully take root once again.
Switzerland-Germany-Georgia, 2021, 92mins
Dir/scr: Salome Jashi
Production: Mira Film, CORSO Film, Sakdoc Film
International sales: Syndicado Film Sales
Producer: Salome Jashi, Vadim Jendreyko, Erik Winter, Martin Roelly
Cinematography: Salome Jashi, Goga Devdariani
Editor: Chris Wright
Music: Philippe Ciompi, Celia Stroom
