Taming the Garden, Salomé Jashi (10/10)

This movie was so fucking good, easily the best movie I've seen in a long time. I knew I'd fuck with it because look at that fucking image?? Obviously it was going to be visually stunning, which it was. At times, it felt like it could have come out of a Miyazaki film, but the crazy part is it is all fucking real!! This documentary follows the transportation of massive trees for a rich man's private tree garden. Cinematography was flawless. Score was pretty bare with much of the movie being music-less, which made the moments with music that much more pronounced. When there was a score, it was super good, though, and eerie. By the end of this movie, you have such an investment in these trees - and they become so personified thru the cinematography, that the ending which is a bunch of shots of the rich guy's garden feels like it could be straight out of Get Out, and you see the trees as trapped (the very last image is of a tree with a big O in its trunk that looks like it's screaming). The movie begs lots of questions about capitalism and beauty, which you are made to feel complicit in because, while the man is buying (destroying) these trees for their beauty, you are also watching the film for its beauty and become complicit in the capitalistic violence. It's a mindfuck. It was really fucking moving. It was stunning. I won't give a movie 10/10 even if it is near perfect if it does not touch me in a certain way, and this movie for sure did.