A quiet gentle film guaranteed to soothe the most jangled nerves with its soft approach to life's little annoyances aand heartbreaks. A writer looks back on his early life as a twelve year old when he lived in a grand mansion and played in the extensive surrounding orchard of fruit trees. I felt like turning off in the first five minutes as the morose writer became more and more depressed with life in general as he struggles for inspiration to write more books and articles. But I'm very glad I kept watching because as he remembers about the happier days of his youth, the dark and shadowy set dissolves into a sun-kissed orchard with a family picnicking under the trees. The soft mellow tones of the photography are beautiful. This is probably what held me for there is very little story. It's more of a mood poem with a touch of mysticism. The pear tree referred to in the title is one in the orchard that refuses to bear fruit. The whys and wherefores are debated at great length. The gardener has watered it, fertilised it, spoken to it, encouraged it, begged it but to no avail...no fruit! An axe is sharpened, But as discussions proceed, the tree is imagined as a living person with good reasons to withhold its fruit. Thus it is spared. Nature they conclude knows best. There are other thought-provoking incidents, none of them overly dramatic, just simple realities of life like dressing up, climbing trees, riding bicycles, splashing about in a stream, being chastised for naughtiness, lighting fires and yearning for the girl of your dreams. Most viewers will align themselves with many of these incidents evoking memories of the days of their youth. The film ends on rather a sad note, but Heaven on earth does not last forever! The film has a lot to commend it. By the way, I am still intrigued with the arabic typewriter that the writer used to thump out the scrawling calligraphy.
Review of The Pear Tree
