A single dream journey like a dream
Yesl Jahseleh, the young boy Kazakh at the Jing Yi Center for the first time “The Botanist”, as the only living boy in Xinjiang. Arsene spends alone and benefits most of his time wandering around his remote village among plants. When he does not collect plant samples for his personal group, he takes care of his grandmother and helps his older brother (Galen Northaftt) in the hills. However, most of the time, Arsene lives in a rich internal world where he was deeply linked to nature and family and family memories, especially his missing uncle, incorrectly binding.
The “Plant World” embraces the Bedouin Kazakh beliefs about the dead souls that continue to live in the natural world, and it is one of the many borders in the movie. Arsene repeated seizures from walking in sleep remaining in a permanent dream. He and his family live in a border village within an independent area of China; People travel regularly and forth to neighboring countries, such as Kazakhstan, as well as other Chinese provinces. The village itself is stuck in a weak area between its rural roots and the modern world. It seems that the cell phone of the Grand Achilles is as if it is a simple technology disruption when the calm surrounding areas are close, but the fateful radio transfers that indicate the extraction of the upcoming natural gas to the area predict an irreplaceable change.
Jing puts “The Botanist” in the context of the Woozy sewers where people and plants cannot be distinguished from each other. Arsene not only feels that he is associated with his family in nature, but also like Meyu (Ren Zihan), a local Chinese girl who befriends her, to a rare plant as well. Visually, Jing follows the approach of everything-but Sink-Sink to collapse the human characters and the vast landscapes into one liquid entity. Sometimes, this is not suggested brilliantly with footage of Arsene that runs his hands with tenderness through a flowing river. At other times, he publishes pictures of surreal folklore, as is when Arsene speaks to his missing uncle in the form of a horse that speaks, he can only remember the famous Mister ED from TV.
Emotional sincerity through the “plant world” is taught as much as it is a responsibility. Jing and the cinematic photographer Fanon Lee may rely on the snapped snapshot, but still have a clear ability to formulate strong images. Mostly, they managed to involve the life of vibrant plants in Xinjiang with the necessary optical awe, but they also bring the same generous eye to the rest of the village, especially its quiet, sporadic areas. (A wide snapshot of two horns of sheep collides in a desert basin that is amazed simply like the document.
The Jing facility with young and non -professional actors also helps extract less than SESL, which rises to the challenge of the framework through limited procedures such as walking and staring. But while Yesl and REN are offered a reasonable chemistry, both of which are able to drop sadness in the main moments, the friendship of Arsin and Meyu charged with romances look very thin so that it does not form the formation of the narrative spine of the film (loose). Joint inclined looks between two people can only communicate, or very little, before becoming a creative crutch.
Moreover, Jing escapes the reality of the various Arsene and Miu – Kazakhi versus the Chinese Han – by liquidating their relationship with mysterious vegetarian metaphor. (Various types of flowers can coexist in harmony, or something.) The possibility of their association.
A prominent audio suspension is repeated insisting throughout the “plant world”, and the exhibition and the expressions of the Arsene perspective are presented. It is not only that the clumsy narration is distinguished by the weakest writing of the movie, but it also puts some shallow objective concepts. “The Botanist” will not be the first movie to claim that love and spiritual communication can resist transformation or exceeding time, but it requires more than a serious presentation to ensure that these ideas do not appear, even when they are delivered from a child’s voice.
As much as the “plant world” recounts the inner coming of Arsen, his older brother is the one who sometimes feels the wealthiest theme. After escaping from the big city in the wake of a violent accident, he is now spending his spare time calling an old girlfriend and fermented while neglecting his grazing duties in general. A Chinese youth is an example, the brother feels separate from the stillness of rural life and the speed of the city, yet he still keeps the foot in both worlds just because there are options. Arsene initially sympathizes with his brother’s existential struggle from afar, but when he suddenly decides to return to the city, it appears that the young boy suddenly understands his goal.
It is a testimony of Jing’s confidence as a young director that he is renewing a strong emotional narration in favor of personal exploration. Jing was born and raised in Xinjiang, and he clearly drinks the “plant world” with his past. (Yesl and Ren are also from Xinjiang, which contributes to the general feeling of the movie. Humanity is the relationship of giving and risky with the natural world has a history in the movie, but in “The Botanist”, you may sometimes feel an unpopular abbreviation of grazing grazing.
Row: b-
The “The Botanist” was first shown at the 2025 Berlin International Film Festival. She is currently seeking to distribute us.
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