The Tree

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Movie
German title The tree
Original title L'Arbre
Country of production Australia , France , Germany , Italy
original language English
Publishing year 2010
length 100 minutes
Age rating FSK 6
Rod
Director Julie Bertuccelli
script Julie Bertuccelli
Elizabeth J. Mars
production Yael Fogiel
Sue Taylor
music Grégoire Hetzel
camera Nigel Bluck
cut François Gédigier
occupation

The Tree is a 2010 Australian - French drama film directed by Julie Bertuccelli. The literary film adaptation based on the novel Our Father Who Art in the Tree by Judy Pascoe tells the story of a mother and her daughter: They believe that the soul of the deceased husband and father moved into the tree next to the house and would henceforth live with them.

action

Peter O'Neil lives happily and in love with his wife Dawn O'Neil and their four children in the Australian outback . One day when he picks up his daughter from playing and drives home, he has a heart attack in the car. While dying, he caused an accident with his car on the large fig tree next to his house. With Peter's death, the happiness in the family also disappears, so that Dawn becomes depressed and her children become selfish and aggressive. However, her daughter Simone believes that the tree on which her father died took up his soul and is now whispering to her. She climbs up more and more often to “talk” to him. After a few days, she also rips her mother Dawn out of her sleep in order to tell her this as a secret. Dawn herself then climbs up into the tree, hands out personal items from Peter, believes in Peter's soul in the tree and speaks to him.

But the tree continues to grow aggressively, so that its roots not only attack the foundation of the house, but also clog the water pipes. When Dawn is looking for a plumber, she not only finds a helpful handyman in George Elrick, but also her new boss, with whom she works as a new saleswoman during the day. She feels good and happy with him again, so that she spends more and more time with him and also accompanies him to the pub for a drink after work . There they play and dance together until they get close for the first time and kiss. Simone only suspects something of this when a particularly large branch destroys Dawn's bedroom window and lands directly on the bed. She thinks it is a punishment for the tree. And Dawn uses it to cuddle up under the leaves and branches and to be able to sleep protected again.

Simone is horrified when she discovers that with George a new man has entered her mother's life, and how he forcibly pulls the thicket of branches out of her mother's bedroom. She gets angry when she learns that George is spending Christmas with the children on the beach with his caravan as her mother's new friend and that there is some happiness and joy again. When they come back from vacation, they see how much the tree has already occupied the house with its branches and roots and threatens to destroy it. George now convinces Dawn to have the tree felled. But Simone wants to defend the tree by barricading herself on it in her tree house and throwing objects at the arrived loggers and George. First Dawn, then her eldest son, and later George fail to get her to come down; Simone finally threatens to jump out of the tree house. Dawn then changes her mind, takes Simone's side and asks George to leave Simone alone and stop the felling. After a brief argument, she also ends the relationship with him and chases him away.

After Dawn slept one night under the protection of the tree, a cyclone threatens the coastal region. Dawn can save herself with her children, but the cyclone destroys almost the entire house and uproots the tree, so that she moves away with her family, since nothing holds anything to the place. On the way she meets George, who offers her a shelter, which she refuses.

criticism

“A case study about grief. The Tree more or less follows Elisabeth Kübler-Ross ' five phases of grief: denial, anger, negotiation, depression and acceptance. But the story takes a path that could be loved by both a poet and an arborist. "

- Michael O'Sullivan in the Washington Post

“The film presents most of its metaphors effortlessly in the direction of supernatural lard. Which is not easy in a story that has many of the qualities of a fairy tale and is practically dependent on a happy ending, which the film with its subdued optimism does not want to deliver. "

- Stephen Holden in the New York Times

“In Julie Bertucelli's films, death doesn't have the last word. He does not put an end to communication with the lost person. [...] The film exposes itself to nature, not wholeheartedly, but devotedly. His animistic furor may lead some viewers to a crossroads. Bertucelli lets him oscillate between the principle of the possible and the fairytale. The tree seems to intervene regularly in the lives of the bereaved. After Dawn has a first, secret rendezvous with her new employer, a branch breaks and falls into her bedroom. Soon the roots threaten the survival in the house so massively that it should be felled. The conflict between persistence and departure is decided by the forces of nature; the burden of symbolism weighs lightly in this film. "

- Gerhard Midding in the world

“Without pathos, but with Charlotte Gainsbourg: In“ The Tree ”a ten-year-old imagines that her late father has turned into a tree. A children's film about death that doesn't put pressure on the lacrimal gland? When have you seen something like this? "

- Daniel Kothenschulte in the Frankfurter Rundschau

“How Charlotte Gainsbourg as the narrow, fragile Dawn plays the woman who stands next to her, escapes in an embryonic sleeping position in the hammock or a hollow in the tree and is brought back to everyday life by her four to fourteen year old egomaniacs, gives the wonderfully unsentimental tone of the film. "

- Claudia Lenssen in time

motivation

Both the director Julie Bertuccelli and Charlotte Gainsbourg had privately each experienced the loss of someone close to them. Gainsbourg lost her father Serge Gainsbourg (1928–1991) by death when she was twenty years old . As an actress, she was afraid of two things: On the one hand, she believed that she could not play the role adequately enough for the director. On the other hand, she was afraid of humming happily to Bach's music while driving a car .

Awards

publication

The Tree had its world premiere at the Cannes International Film Festival on May 23, 2010. After it was released in France on August 11, 2010 and in Australia on September 30, 2010, it was released on March 3, 2010 in Germany. Worldwide he made only 2.2 million US dollars. The film has been available on DVD in Germany since September 2, 2011 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for The Tree . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , December 2010 (PDF; test number: 125 852 K).
  2. ↑ Michael O'Sullivan: When a beloved life topples on washingtonpost.com, July 22, 2011, accessed December 22, 2011
  3. ↑ Stephen Holden : The Tree (2010) on nytimes.com, July 15, 2011, accessed December 22, 2011
  4. ↑ How Charlotte Gainsbourg mourns her husband on welt.de on March 2, 2011, accessed on December 22, 2011
  5. ^ Daniel Kothenschulte: My friend, the tree on fr-online.de of March 2, 2011, accessed on December 22, 2011
  6. ↑ Claudia Lenssen: Die Macht der Mrauer on zeit.de from March 3, 2011, accessed on December 22, 2011
  7. ↑ Thomas Abeltshauser: How Charlotte Gainsbourg deals with death and loss on welt.de from March 4, 2011, accessed on December 22, 2011
  8. ↑ The Tree (2011) at boxofficemojo.com (English), accessed December 22, 2011