“Master Gardener”
Manager Paul Schrader
interpreters Joel Edgerton, Quintessa Swindell, Sigourney Weaver
premiere 9/6/23
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Although nearly all of Paul Schrader’s filmography, including Martin Scorsese’s ‘Taxi Driver’ script, revolves around the theme of guilt and redemption, the director decided that his last three films make up a very special trilogy on the subject. priest incarnated by ethan hawk The poker player he played in ‘The Reverend’ oskar isaak The ‘card counter’ and now the expert gardener it brought to life Joel Edgerton In ‘Master Gardener’ are three men who have gone through similar violent experiences in the past, managed to find some tranquility in the present, and return to their descent into hell. Moreover, three are characterized by writing a diarysitting alone with his thoughts in a handwritten notebook, at a desk in plain rooms.
The hero of the latter achieved this blatant asceticism by devoting himself to gardening, the art of patience and calmness. He works for a wealthy woman (Sigourney Weaver), and the appearance of his young niece, again with a turbulent past, accelerates what shouldn’t be rushed. In the “Master Gardener” example, the character was a member of supremacist groups: crime. He finds salvation through the care of flowers and the teaching of the calm art of gardening. Violence returns, as in the story of the priest and the card counter, but Schrader gives himself the luxury of being a little more optimistic in this film that closes an amazing trilogy. Perhaps he himself has already attained salvation.