The Man Who Planted Trees: Holy Dang

The Man Who Planted Trees by Frederic Back is unique and immersive film with a beautiful mesh of expertly adapted visual storytelling, especially with the contrast of colors and how they transition throughout the film. 

In the beginning, Back sticks to earthy sepia tones that describe the barren atmosphere of the Alps and conversely the warm solitude of Elzeard Bouffer's home. As the film transitions with the growing forest and the damage it faces, the colors melt and merge like many different moving impressionist paintings. The colors help transition from desolate to bountiful and full of life. It's a technique I'd really love to explore on my own because this is a really gorgeous movie that's really inspirational to me.

Similar to Princess Mononoke, the sense of scale for the landscape actually bolsters the message of the film, especially showing off the trees to show off Elzeard's hardwork. I thought the message of it was really atypical and interesting, that if people knew that a man was responsible for the growing of the forest, they'd intervene, but they lived on the assumption that it was a work of nature and they left it alone and thrived within it. It's an atypical portrayal especially with films that contain environmentally fueled messages tend to go against humans. But it's interesting because the growing of the forest is like the development of a dream and when people intervene with someone's dream, it tends to get warped and changed and becomes impure, whereas keeping the secret keeps the dream pure and natural. And it maintained the optimism of a pure dream throughout a film. Elezard carefully develops and creates his dream by caring for the seeds and planting them quietly as they grow into a bigger life fulfillment.

There need to be more films with this kind of narrative and gentle, creative style. It's ridiculously inspiring to me as someone who works really hard to write optimistic narratives even when darkness can fall upon the viewer (depicting the suffering villages and wartime). It's just a very subtle, simple, but expressive and gorgeous film and I really hope I can make something that inspired someday. 

A depiction of the modern man who plants trees.