I just finished watching The Secret Garden, the film based on the 1911 novel by Francis Hodgson Burnett, for the three thousandth time; but I hadn't seen this movie since I was younger than around twelve. After the score by Zbigniew Preisner kicked in my first tear fell. After that it was pretty much an endless stream of nostalgic/quarter-life-crisis tears every time the music struck up again, or little Mary Lennox, played by the now-elegant once-half-pint Kate Maberly, would start to speak in inquisitive or metaphorical terms about gardens, much to my chagrin. I know exactly what it is that does it for me about this movie: it is purely and simply visually and sonically stunning. Whether a child or adult, and I knew this watching it as a kid, it is a perfect film.
In case you're not as familiar with the story as I am, the majority of the film takes place on an estate in the British countryside, where a ten-year-old Indian-born British émigré girl has come to live upon the death of both of her parents in an earthquake. She is surrounded by coldness from an early age -- severe neglect and isolation from her well-to-do aristocrat parents, followed by the icy "hospitality" Mrs. Medlock, played by Dame Maggie Smith, shows her upon her arrival to Misselthwaite Manor--and so grows used to being emotionally closed off, like the garden in question.
The dialogue in these films reminds me of the scripted dialogue in the late nineties/early 2000's WB television series Dawson's Creek, if you are old (or young) enough to remember it-- and before you laugh, or perhaps concurrently with your laughter-- give me a mere moment to explain. In Dawson's Creek, a series of interactions would occur in which young people would appear capable of speaking in vocabularies far beyond their maturity level, dealing with issues and emotions statistically far beyond their maturity level--and though this made for a vulnerable-for-ridicule categorization to some, in my not-so-humble opinion, it made a much deeper plot and dialogue structure thus possible. Much the same in The Secret Garden; which is why I enjoy both.
Perhaps, and I say this without reservation, it is also my nostalgia for childhood gardening, contemporary appreciation for horticulture, permaculture, and gardening in general, as well as my love of large, sweeping, Ansel-Adams-esque landscapes, that send me into a dreamy whirlwind of escape and reverie. That said, some of the stop-motion capture of plants taking root beyond the gated garden walls, and the lilies and carnations blooming are positively breath-taking and intoxicating, and somewhat ahead of their time--almost out of place in the dusty, antique context of the film.
The period costumes and set are to die for, and watching Dame Maggie Smith (before she was donned a Dame by British royalty) in action is always a treat. Misselthwaite Manor was the Downton Abbey before the popularization of Downton Abbey, if ya get me--though she is no hoity-toity Dowager in The Secret Garden--she plays a head caretaker, the "downstairs help" in the 1993 children's classic.
In conclusion, I will never get tired of watching films from my youth that entranced me, less this one, and films like these (and there are few that measure up in degrees of nostalgia and ability to strike an emotional chord) will probably never stop having that effect on me. In fact, quite the opposite is probably true. The Secret Garden boasts a magnificent child-like score, hits on all my visual sensibilities, and highlights parallels in my own life in themes of childhood isolation, innocence ignited, passion for the outdoors, creation and beauty, and reconnecting with distant relatives at unpredictable times; which makes it three-for-three on my cinematic scoreboard.
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Erika S. Haines
2015
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