'The Master Gardener': Always recognizable Paul Schrader

No one can accuse Paul Schrader of imposture, of writing scripts and making films adapting to the fashions imposed by the times, of seeking success using saleable formulas, of exercising in Hollywood as an efficient and triumphant errand boy. His cinema has always been as personal as it is recognizable. His world is murky, obsessed with sin, guilt, torment and the possibility of redemption through something called love for so many cornered losers, with internal and external hells. His tribute to the inimitable and incomparable Pickpocket, created by Robert Bresson, has been permanent, and sometimes crushing, throughout his cinema. Since his universe is so recognizable, that doesn't mean he's always blessed by grace. He wrote complex and extraordinary scripts for Scorsese (Taxi Driver and Raging Bull). I also really like Yakuza, which was directed by the intelligent and romantic Sydney Pollack. And others failed, although his personality was recognizable. He has directed brilliant, unsettling and heartfelt films, others as pretentious as they are truculent, including some horror like Mishima. I'm especially moved by Possibility of Escape and Affliction, which didn't exactly fill the theaters.

More information

'Bears do not exist': I do not understand the cinema of the persecuted Jafar Panahi

For a long time, the big studios dispensed with Schrader. Or he left. But it rolls with enough continuity. He has already been included as a distinguished member of independent cinema, as if that label and presumed creative freedom imply that art will always be present. It is not what I have captured in the last stage of Schrader, although the festivals are elated to release what bears his signature and the critical praise rains down. In The Card Counter, his previous film, the story is disturbing for a while and then quite unravels telling you in flashback the past of the tormented protagonist, torturer of the army.

And along comes The Master Gardener. He is a man with a clumsy look, who is responsible for the flowering of the gardens of a millionaire and elderly lady who also asks him to give joy to her bed. For a long time we talk about the essential communion of the human being with nature, the high that gives smelling over your hands the wet earth, stepping on the earth with bare feet and other wonders offered by botany and gardening. Everything is purified and becomes spiritual by discovering and cultivating these oases. But when it comes to Schrader, you know that behind those things there have to be sinister stories in the enigmatic gardener's past and that his idyllic present is going to be fucked up. The past is narrated in a botched plan. He was a skinhead, he killed his colleagues (it is not known for what reasons) and the Government has included him in its protected witnesses. And everything gets complicated when the drugged niece of her boss ecologist and the abuser who was her partner appear. But, as almost always in his cinema, love appears in such dark circumstances. And let's see what present and what future it has.

More information

Read the film reviews

I follow the story with relative interest and find it fascinating at some point. When that exciting actress and woman named Sigourney Weaver appears, there is mystery and I would also like to know more about her character. Schrader creates a certain atmosphere. I watch and listen without passion The Master Gardener, but I don't get bored either. I am intrigued by what is happening. And in these times, that is greatly appreciated.

The Master Gardener

Address: Paul Schrader.

Interpreters: Joel Edgerton, Sigourney Weaver, Quintessa Swindell, Esai Morales, Victoria Hill.

Genre: thriller. United States, 2022.

Duration: 111 minutes.

Premiere: June 9.

Subscribe to continue reading

Read without limits

Read more

I'm already a subscriber