Review: The People Garden (2016)

[Mark R. Leeper]

THE PEOPLE GARDEN
(a film review by Mark R. Leeper)

CAPSULE: Somewhere in this 83-minute mystery story
there is a mediocre 20-minute film struggling to get
out. A 20-something woman goes to Japan to find her
missing rock star boyfriend and then to break up with
him. The search leads her to a possibly supernatural
Japanese forest where her boy friend was making a
music video, but has disappeared from the shooting
location without word. The film raises many questions,
answers few, and none to the viewer's satisfaction.
Nadia Litz writes and directs. Rating: -1 (-4 to +4)
or 3/10

Sweetpea (played by Dree Hemingway) is a rock fan who has had a
relationship with rock star Jamie (Francois Arnaud). We see them
dance together once. Once. Supposedly they had some sort of
relationship, but now Sweetpea is tired of the rock star. She has
flown to Japan where Jamie is making a music video. Sweetpea has
come thousands of miles to break off her liaison with Jamie. But
Jamie has disappeared from the set without telling anyone.
Incidentally the video-makers are shooting in the famous and
mysterious Aokigahara Forest, known as the Suicide Forest, where
many Japanese have committed suicide.

Writer/director Nadia Litz was expecting that the suspense would
pull the viewer into the story. But we are given little reason to
have concern for the fate of Jamie or even of Sweetpea. The
characters seem flat. We see Sweetpea dancing with Jamie and are
told just that she had a relationship with him but that she is
chasing to Japan to break up with him. Sweetpea searches the
forest and finds where the music video was being filmed. Jamie had
been there that morning but had disappeared. One would think that
the production people would welcome Sweetpea coming and looking for
Jamie, but Sweetpea is just met with (never-explained) hostility.

The film is 83 minutes long and there would have been plenty of
time for Litz to develop Sweetpea, but instead she lazily fills out
a feature length with long takes that have limited motion and in
which nothing happens. A good editor would have cut this film down
to less than half its current length.

At times Litz seems to try experimenting with the style. She
throws in an overhead shot. I believe toward the beginning of
there is a piece where it looks like she is experimenting with the
number of frames per second. None of this is explained or seems to
amount to much.

Litz seems to be taking advantage of the current interest in the
Aokigahara Suicide Forest. While Sweetpea tries to be serious in
her concern for Jamie, it is hard to take seriously any character
named "Sweetpea." Sweetpea is played by the very serious Dree
Hemingway, the daughter of Mariel Hemingway and the granddaughter
of Ernest Hemingway.

This is a film with an atmosphere somewhere between dream-like and
lethargic atmosphere, but it needed a much stronger plot. I would
rate it a -1 on the -4 to +4 scale or 3/10.

Film Credits:
<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4254562/combined>

What others are saying:
<https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_people_garden>


Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 2016 Mark R. Leeper