The Gardener is a love-letter to the late Frank Cabot and the Quebec garden he devoted much of his life creating, Les Quatre Vents.
If you’re going to nitpick, it’s hard to claim “new release” status for the film The Gardener, the story of superstar garden designer Frank Cabot and his Quebec showcase Les Quatre Vents.
The film was released in Canada back in 2016, I think, though it drew heavily on the interview Cabot gave shortly before his death in 2011.
Photo: Screenshot
Still, the audience I saw the film with – all keen gardeners right down to their green thumbs – were in no mood to be nitpicking.
You got the impression this might have been the only film many of them had seen this century.
But even non-gardeners couldn’t fail to be blown away by Les Quatre Vents – if you’ll excuse the windy pun.
Cabot tells his own story, illustrating it with glimpses of his stunning garden – an assortment of nooks, hedges, bridges, towers, follies, streams and above all, colour. Some of these colours don’t have a name yet.
Cabot came from old money – his parents bought the original property 70 years or so ago.
But it wasn’t until he suffered what the film tactfully refers to as “business reverses” that he decided to put all his resources – spiritual as well as financial - into creating the greatest garden in Canada.
And that’s essentially the entire story of The Gardener. He set out to do it, and here’s the result.
The interview that Cabot gave is as good an insight into the soul of a gardener as you’re likely to get.
Where non-gardeners – or people reluctantly roped in to assist gardeners - can only see what’s required in the way of weeding, clipping, mowing and endless trips to the dump, people like Cabot and his fans simply see Creation.
Among the fans are actress Angela Lansbury, celebrity English gardener Penelope Hobhouse, the former Governor General of Canada, Adrienne Clarkson and various members of the Cabot family.
Including the current incumbent at Les Quatre Vents, Frank’s son Clive.
Gardens are not generally things to talk about, they’re places to be, places to walk around in, places to change as the mood strikes you.
But despite the challenge, everyone in The Gardener has a crack at trying to describe what gardening is, what this garden’s aim is, and why Frank Cabot was so special that the film is named after what he did with it. At times you seem to be drowning in adjectives.
But that’s not really important. I spent the entire film, as it were, on holiday – a holiday for the senses. Cabot’s particularly good at describing smells and textures, but then suddenly you’re bowled over by yellow, magenta, blue, gold, coral and all the rest.
When the film finished, my companions were eagerly chatting among themselves, with all the enthusiasm of someone who can’t wait to get back to their own gardens. I’d like to see the results!
