The Garden
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Reviews
Rating: 5 / 5
Date: 2010-05-26
Summary: "The Garden is "incite"ful"
I was mostly interested in watching The Garden because the cover image caught my eye. I know that I shouldn't judge a movie by it's cover, but in this case, I'm glad that I did.
This movie really made me angry (any movie that incites some sort of strong emotion in me is regarded as a good movie in my book!). The unfairness of the conflict is so aggravating that I found myself yelling at the TV screen. I just cannot comprehend the actions that some people take just because they have the power. The actions are not reasonably rationalized, and it just really sucks for the underdogs.
I would have never known about this issue if it wasn't for this film, and it made me realize that I'm unaware of so many issues that are similar to the garden conflict, and I wish I knew about more of them so that maybe I could do something.
Rating: 5 / 5
Date: 2010-04-16
Summary: "What The Left Does Right and What The Right Does Wrong"
This is a compelling and sadly unsurprising documentary about a group of Latino farmers in South Central Los Angeles being bullied by the political establishment and forced off land that they have been using for many years. It is a simple story, the likes of which we are all familiar with: back room deals, greed over morality, poor people being abused without recourse, etc. For anyone with a conscience this is an open and shut case of right and wrong. It is also an example of what the Left does right, despite their many political and philosophical flaws, and by extension, an example of what the Right does wrong.
The Left has not completely forsaken its ties to decency. The Left wing establishment has, as is evidenced in this film, but the grassroots core continues to try to do what they believe is the "right thing". Whether it actually is the "right thing" or not doesn't concern me here. They believe in a higher ethical system than the one layed out in the law books. Unfortunately, the Right in America has become little more than a defender of the these laws without any thought as to whether they are ethical or not. The Right in America has been hijacked by Big Business and Israel and turned into a Capitalist propaganda machine. When a group of poor subsistence farmers can be run off their land for no reason whatsoever (to this day the land has been left vacant by Ralph Horowitz, the owner) and no one from the Right comments or cares or shows up to march with them can we blame the poor for flying the Che flag? And when the singer of Rage Against The Machine makes a comment about how this would not happen in "Anglo" neighborhoods and no one is there to tell him that Jews are not "Anglos" can we blame them for distrusting and resenting white people? The Right needs to realize that Republicans, Israel and Big Business are not on our side. We need to stop worrying about Border Patrols and taxes and start worrying about ethics and moral obligation and distancing ourselves from the things that, rightly, shed us in a negative light. It is a shame that not one of the members of any of the many Southern Californian "extreme" right groups was there fighting alongside those farmers against Mr. Horowitz and the LA City Council.
Rating: 4 / 5
Date: 2010-02-21
Summary: "Injustice in Los Angeles"
It was George Orwell who once said "In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.". For the most part, I believe, The Garden does that. A heartbreaking true story of how the largest urban form in America was razed to the ground by corrupt politicians and an over zealous land owner.
More than the story of a farm, it is a commentary on the human condition and the desire to live one's life with dignity. These immigrant workers poured their blood and sweat and turned a 16 acre wasteland into a lush farm land. By stripping them of their land and livelihood through backroom deals, the politicians are destroying the America where it was once possible for the little guy to succeed
Rating: 5 / 5
Date: 2010-02-14
Summary: "An honest look at immigrants, community, activism, and vengeance"
This movie covers the fight by a group of south central families to avoid having a 13 acre garden in South Central Los Angeles destroyed. There is a lot of detailed history of this battle, but the producers skillfully focused on presenting the major events and players in order to give the viewer an understanding of the conflict, rather than presenting the details of the litigation surrounding the 13 acres.
The summary is this: after LA police officers were acquitted of charges of beating Rodney King, one of the things L.A. did to try to improve community relations was to help start a community garden on 13 acres. The film gives ground level and aerial views of the lush garden that resulted with plots tended by local families, mostly spanish speaking immigrants. There were banana, walnut and papaya trees, corn, lettuces, squash, etc. It was open from dawn to dusk. Families, senior citizens and children all worked together and they eventually developed a democratically based group that set rules and alloted land, and represented them in their fight to keep it when the garden was slated for destruction by a developer purchasing it from the city.
This film covers many issues of American society that we have struggled with for over 100 years - poor nutrition in low income neighborhoods, community building, minority rights and representation, land development and political dealmaking, the conflicts between different ethnic low income groups, community activism, etc.
After watching the film I was saddened and angered at what in the end really killed the garden - the anger of the developer who said he wouldn't sell the land at ANY price. Despite national attention, celebrity involvement, funding from the Annenburg foundation to buy the land at a fair price, etc. etc. one man had the power to destroy or preserve the community garden, and he choose to destroy it.
However, today I did some online research to see what has happened to the south central farmers since the destruction of their garden. Though they lost the battle, they have gone on to develop a new garden elsewhere, and are using it to provide low income families with fresh fruits and vegetables, to provide education on nutrition and organic gardening, and now to generate income by selling produce to a Whole Foods store. I'm thrilled to see that these people have gone on to build something even bigger, and perhaps provide healthy food for more families. However, the new garden isn't in the community, and I would guess that less people from south central are able to be involved each day due to the distance from the current garden to their community.
This is a great film to watch with children as it illustrates the difficulties of immigrants, the importance of exercising democratic rights, how the political and legal system work, how community organizers who have accomplished great things sometimes later use their power to enrich themselves at their communities' expense, how we struggle with our prejudices against people with less education, lower income, and lack of facility with the English language.
There is no voice over filling in all the details, which would be a distraction from what is going on with the people in this movie. This is its strength - we must watch and listen and come to our own conclusions about the players involved though it seems quite obvious by the end of the film what is motivating the different parties. However, I'm not sure I truly know what many of the politicians did, chose not to do, and might have done, to help the farmers of South Central. If you like documentaries where everything is explained/settled/concluded you will be frustrated by this. But I think it is better that the film was done in this way because this is how life happens - we come to conclusions about the motivations of others, and what is happening "behind the scenes", but in many cases we will never know and must go forward doing the best we can with the information we CAN get.
Rating: 3 / 5
Date: 2009-12-23
Summary: "compelling documentary"
***1/2
After the riots of 1992, the city of Los Angeles set aside fourteen acres of land not far from the downtown area to be used as a community produce garden, the largest such parcel in the United States. In 2003, the owner of the property decided to sell the land to make way for a storage facility and soccer field, resulting in a tremendous loss for the farmers who had invested so much of their time and lives working there. The documentary "The Garden," directed by Scott Hamilton Kennedy, chronicles the fight the workers waged against the powers-that-be to preserve the place that had come to mean so much to them.
The issue eventually became a cause celebre for politicians and celebrities alike, with people like Dennis Kucinich, Darryl Hannah, Joan Baez and Willie Nelson getting in on the action. But the true heroes of "The Garden" are the ordinary men and women who took on the system and proved that even if you can't always beat City Hall, it would be a betrayal of the human spirit not to at least give it a try. This is a heartrending yet inspiring film - if a trifle rough around the edges - marked by the bitterness of outward defeat and the triumph of a community rising up and making its voice heard. The "villains" may be pretty clear-cut in this case - lip-service politicians, shady dealers and a vindictive landowner - but then so too are the heroes. "The Garden" is their story.