“An astonishing, daring work of pure artistry that challenges and provokes”

Trees tell a fascinating story simply through their existence, since many of them have stood for longer than anyone today has been alive, and just as many are going to remain standing for years after we’ve all perished. There’s something so intriguing about forests, especially when looking at them from an artistic perspective, since they are clusters of living organisms that become entire ecosystems on their own, and which have always intrigued those brave enough to set foot into places that often remain entirely untouched by modernity. This is where we find Salvatore Mereu drawing our attention in the form of Wandering Trees, setting out to adapt the novel Alberi erranti e naufraghi by Alberto Capitta, in which various complex ideas are brought forward and discussed in what becomes one of the year’s most impressive works. Set in an unspecified year somewhere in Northern Sardinia, the film follows the intersecting stories of three families: Giuliano is the young son of Piero, an elderly shepherd who has dedicated his life to saving animals. Emilio comes from a wealthy family, which is run by the cruel and overbearing Sebastiano, who has been working laboriously to ensure that Emilio and his older brother Michelangelo (who possesses clear symptoms of psychopathy, much like his father) remain on the straight and narrow. This includes forbidding them from interacting with Giuliano, whose humble life is viewed as vulgar by the grotesquely wealthy family. Maddalena is the young daughter of a respected local official, who connects the two other families through being set to marry Michelangelo and also coming to meet Giuliano by chance, not at all aware that the two have a long, storied history of tensions binding them together. An astonishing, daring work of pure artistry that challenges and provokes in ways that come as a surprise, even to those who may have certain expectations of what Mereu would do with this challenging material, becoming one of the year’s most extraordinary and overwhelmingly brilliant achievements in terms of both form and content.

From its first moments, where we see Piero and Giuliano interacting with their collection of animals that they have taken under their wings, we’re immediately captivated by Wandering Trees, the kind of film that is instantly able to hold our attention. The film is designed as a story of three different families, representing the three main tenets of the socio-cultural ladder, as their lives intersect over a number of years, told through the eyes of the children of three men who represent very different aspects of society. Particularly in the bitter rivalry between Piero, who has chosen a path of healing the world, and Sebastiano, who is insistent on bringing destruction wherever he feels it is necessary to have someone put in their place, even if it means resorting to unhinged violence, secure in the belief that he will be able to get away with any act of aggression as a result of his status and influence. Its social sentiments are certainly far from subtle, but the entire purpose of the film is to examine society from multiple different perspectives, filtering it through the lens of various intentional contradictions, particularly in the often difficult relationship between nature and urbanity. This relationship in itself reflects the core themes of tradition vs. modernity, represented in various ways through these characters as they attempt to follow their own desires, even if for some of them it means causing havoc for anyone who steps out of their preconceived position in life. Mereu is methodical in how he systematically deconstructs the cultural details that make up this story, taking what could’ve been an overly dense attempt at condensing society into a single narrative and instead embracing the more abstract ideas embedded in the novel. It touches on so many different ideas that the act of focusing on even just one of them evokes at least half a dozen other smaller aspects that are just as essential to the film’s incredibly moving approach to exhuming the more hidden details of the human condition, which give Wandering Trees its distinct identity and profound thematic depth.

However, despite its often complex subject matter, Wandering Trees proves to be a much more accessible affair than we’d expect at a cursory glance, never being impelled to simplify its intentions or overall message, and instead finding a strong balance between the tangible and the abstract. Much of this is embedded in the approach to the characters – as an ensemble piece the film shifts perspectives constantly, with different members of each of the core three families having their own storylines that are carefully pieced together to create a bold and provocative glimpse into the lives of people who occupy radically different places in the same social and cultural ecosystem. This region of Sardinia (which is very likely fictional, in order to give the story an additional layer of complexity and prevent it from being restricted to purely factual information) is represented by each one of these families, all of whom are focused on achieving specific goals, some empathetic and others more selfish, which correlates with the overarching theme of nature. For people like Piero and his son it is possible to exist in perfect harmony with each other, but as pleasant as the idea of every being living peacefully alongside each other is, nature cannot exist without predators, and while Piero and Guiliano represent the more placid, passive beings, Sebastiano and his sons represent the more vicious animals that seek out their prey. Naturally, this becomes a lot more complex when we’re looking at what divides us from the rest of the animal kingdom. This is just one of the many fascinating ideas that constitute this film, and it is brilliantly represented through the use of an abundance of allegory, perfectly executed by a cast of exceptional actors, where everyone works together to create this cohesive and complex character study that weaves together so many different perspectives with incredible nuance and detail.

At 180 minutes in length, there’s certainly enough space in Wandering Trees for the director to be a bit more experimental, which is ultimately what allows the film to take on such a distinctly daring form that extends far beyond just the narrative and starts to influence the visual and tonal aspects of the film. There’s a fascinating quality about this film that is difficult to pinpoint – Mereu is evidently very influenced by the complex character-based sagas of past decades, as well as drawing inspiration from a number of works that attempt to explore the relationship between the natural and urban worlds – but even with these elements guiding the film, Wandering Trees still feels extraordinarily original, moving through the spaces inhabited by these characters and showing their radically different ways of life. Whether a scene takes place in the pastoral surroundings of the “Il Bambini” forest, or the city that seems to be entirely suspended in time, the visual aesthetic is absolutely astonishing, each detail being intentionally chosen to communicate something that cannot be said through more conventional means, and instead manifests through subtle but memorable aspects that all come together to form a complex existential tapestry from which some enthralling details emerge. The film is also notable for its more peculiar tone – it starts as a more somber realist drama, with the gritty depiction of the lives of Piero and Giuliano being the focus for much of the first act, to the point where the sudden realization that they live on the outskirts of a relatively large town comes as an intentional surprise. As the story progresses, it adopts elements of magical realism, before eventually embracing the dreamlike tone that was hinted at through the gradual addition of more abstract elements. There are many questions that the film purposefully leaves unanswered, purely as a means to underline the more complex nature of the story, and it all ultimately amounts to an exceptionally strong approach on the part of the director, who takes this sprawling novel and condenses it into a very special work of art.

It is certainly difficult not to come across as hyperbolic when discussing a film like Wandering Trees, but when presented with a film that is most certainly best of the decade material there is a responsibility to highlight its merits, and the wholehearted belief that this is an absolutely remarkable work of cinema that acts as a return to the kind of maximalist character-driven saga that has seemingly gone out of fashion. This is a film in which the past, present and future blur together into one astonishing existential odyssey, drawing together so many complicated themes in such a way that we barely even notice the lengthy running time (three hours have rarely felt quite as short as it does here); instead we find ourselves deeply fixated on the staggering depth of this film, hypnotized by its extraordinary boldness. Mereu showcases the depth and wisdom that comes with working in the industry for a quarter of a century, taking on the enormous challenge of adapting a novel that is evidently not all that easy to interpret, and methodically unravelling its many themes into something not only intriguing, but outright enthralling. It makes some extremely bold decisions in terms of both style and storyline, highlighting certain elements that would be considered too difficult in many cases, especially with the more loose structure of a narrative that bounces liberally between perspectives, with certain characters who we believed to be the primary lead exiting the film for extended stretches of time, and the focus instead overtaken by a more minor character for a few scenes. It makes the film seem less like a single narrative, but rather a mosaic of smaller stories that become cohesive through each individual piece being drawn back to the central themes of identity, human nature and social order, all of which form the foundation for this incredibly moving drama. The addition of certain components (such as the sequences where we come to learn why this forest is known as “Il Bambini”, a similar principle being applied to the title of this film) as well as exceptionally strong character work by the actors create an unforgettable portrait of humanity and our relationship with our surroundings, becoming an absolutely masterful demonstration of truly daring, provocative filmmaking at its most riveting.

(c) Image copyright: VIACOLVENTO