Conversation with My Gardener

Colour, 35 mm
France, 2007, 109 min
Section: Official Selection - Competition

Synopsis

A successful painter leaves Paris to return to the village in central France where he was born more than 50 years ago. Since the death of his parents the unoccupied house has been surrounded by gardens that the painter has neither the will nor the know-how to cultivate. To his great surprise his ad for a gardener is answered by an old friend from primary school. A mature, friendly bond develops between the two men that is enriched by the different experiences they have had in life. The gardener’s directness and the genuine spontaneity of his worldly wisdom, in particular, captivates the metropolitan, who takes a new view of life, love, and of vegetables and funerals. The inconspicuously elegant direction of Jean Becker makes room for the meeting of two outstanding French actors, Daniel Auteuil and Jean-Pierre Darroussin, whose brilliant performances rank the story of the friendship between painter and gardener among the best French films of the year.

About the director

Jean Becker (b. 1938, Paris) started his career in the film industry as an assistant to his father Jacques, but he also cooperated with Julien Duvivier and Henri Verneuil. At the beginning of the 1960s he started directing independently and cast Jean-Paul Belmondo in a number of crime films (A Man Named Rocca and Tender Scoundrel). After a nearly 20-year pause he returned with the film One Deadly Summer in 1983, a portrait of a girl looking for the criminals who raped her mother years before (which won four national César awards). More than 10 years later, Becker won acclaim for his psychological drama Elisa, with Vanessa Paradis and Gérard Depardieu in the lead roles. His filmography also includes: Children of the Marshlands (Les enfants du marais, 1999), A Crime in Paradise (Un crime au paradis, 2000), and Strange Gardens (Effroyables jardins, 2002). He is currently at work on his next film Deux jours à tuer.