Zeitgeist Take Nap in ‘The Tree’

Zeitgeist Films have done some very late Cannes 2010 shopping at the 2011 edition of the Berlin’s EFM with today’s title pick-up announcement. After previously releasing Julie Bertuccelli’s brilliant Since Otar Left, the mini art-house distributor have teamed once again with her on sophomore film item, The Tree – which was the festival’s closing night film and in a way, exemplified how much of an “off” year it was for Cannes.

Gist: Adapted from Judy Pascoe’s novel Our Father Who Art in a Tree, this tells the story of a family in mourning after the death of their father. Dawn (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and Peter live together with their children in a suburban neighborhood in Australia. In the middle of their luxuriant garden stands the kids’ favorite playground : a massive Moreton Bay Fig tree, whose branches reach high towards the sky and roots stretch far into the ground. One night, Peter dies of a heart attack, crashing his car into the tree trunk. Dawn is left alone with her four children to raise. All of them naturally go looking for comfort under their protective tree, which becomes even more present in their lives. The daughter, thinking that her late father whispers to her through the leaves, settles in the tree and refuses to climb down from it.

Worth Noting: Gainsbourg’s next pair of films to be released theatrically this year could be LVT’s Melancholia and Sylvie Verheyde’s Confession of a Child of the Century.

Do We Care?: This film was among the lowlights at Cannes last year – in our books it’s a total flop and could potentially only interest the over 50 demographic.