From Here to the Apple Tree

“Like so many young men of his generation in France, my grandfather was sent to the Algerian War — a war that still haunts him when he has to move into a nursing home. Moving into his house, I try to make his walls, his garden, his memory my own. How to live with the legacy of a ravaged world ?”

Cyprien Ponson’s grandfather, Guy, saw 28 months of his youth vanish in Algeria, forever marking the rest of his life. All that remains of these years as a conscript in the French colonial army are the visions of horror experienced by a private suddenly faced with death and the amorous and sexual frustration of a young man. Shocked by a categoric and racist remark Guy had once uttered about “Arabs”, Cyprien is planning to question him about these dark years, when Guy unexpectedly decides to move into a care home. Until then, Cyprien had been filming himself and Guy in the house’s mirror, but he now expands the field and finds his space in the garden. Ruined by the glyphosate of “grandpa”, who used the methods of his time, this abandoned place becomes a territory that Cyprien must conquer, as a way of perpetuating memories of Guy while also getting rid of its residues in an effort to bring the place back to life. As a good gardener-filmmaker, Cyprien strives to make his film in step with nature and the seasons, sowing a sprouting idea here, discovering that a weed can provide a good shot over there, planting a stake elsewhere as the backbone for his story. We know that history repeats itself and that a garden is no more than small plot of land in a world devoid of harmony: Cyprien nonetheless funnels all his efforts into making the garden and his film a success. Watching him assemble a makeshift screen with his two fumbling hands for an open-air projection of grandpa’s old photos, we are tempted to offer him our own helping hands. From here to the screen, it’s not that far.

Christian Borghino