Paul Schrader’s Master Gardener premieres Out of Competition as he is awarded the Golden Lion Lifetime Achievement Award at the 79th Venice Film Festival.
Master Gardener completes what appears to be Schrader’s lonely man writes a diary trilogy that began with First Reformed and continued with The Card Counter.
Sharing the screen with titles of the opening credits were engrossing time-lapse closeups of gorgeous flowers opening in front of a pitch dark background. It was enough for the press and industry members at the Venice Film Festival screening to get excited. When director Paul Schrader’s name appeared on screen it enticed an impromptu applause during the opening of his latest feature Master Gardener. You could feel expectation fill the room. What were we about to see?
In Master Gardener, Joel Edgerton is Narvel – a strongly reticent figure in charge of Sigourney Weaver’s Norma’s gardens (in more ways than one). However; at night, his diary entries reveal a rich and analytic inner life behind the controlled exterior. His body tattoos uncover a lot more, though. Narvel’s entire torso and back are covered in neo-nazi symbols and chants. The imagery is so heavy that once it’s revealed it cannot be unseen. The likeable character has now taken a turn and we become watchful of his presence. Can he be trusted?
Norma seems to think so as she is at the same time impressed and excited by his ink. She tasks Narvel with taking care of her cousin Maya who Norma describes as ‘mixed blood’. He is to take Maya on as a protege in hopes that she will inherit the gardens in the future. Everyone is far from perfect in Master Gardener, but Maya’s mistakes are still close enough to her present to catch up with her. Narvel, as his unusual name implies – is a ‘knight in shining armour’. He saves Maya from her abusive boyfriend and her substance abuse and falls in love with her in the meantime.
There is a story in there about the Garden of Eden, the need for control in order not to let the weeds (evil) to take over. Schrader tries to draw the line between the flower seeds and seeds of love and hate, a line between an organised garden and an orderly life. Perhaps that is why Narvel is a neo-nazi in the first place he was looking to impose a structure of order on his life but realised he had chosen the wrong one. Perhaps… If the symbolism is intended it is not very clear. Luckily for Schrader, his passion for the story and his characters alongside captivating imagery and meditative pace translate well regardless. A movie about a late middle-aged former neo-nazi falling in love with a barely adult black woman has no business feeling as inoffesive as it does. It’s ludicrous; sure, but not ridiculous.
Sadly, Master Gardener doesn’t really pick up much from the excitement of its opening credits, but it still generates a fairly satisfying movie. After two movies under his direction and countless others as scriptwriter; the obsessive diary writer (and his voiceover) that Schrader again chooses as his protagonist should feel more stale than it ultimately does. The director manages to intrigue by passion for his story alone, although it would be sweeter if we felt invited along for the ride.
