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The work of Paul Schrader, one of the last active mavericks of Hollywood in the 1970s, is perhaps only the repetition, in various forms, of the scenario which made him famous, that of Taxi Driver (1976), signed on his debut for Martin Scorsese.
For the past few films, the venerable 76-year-old filmmaker has returned to these starting points, aligning the tormented heroes straight out of the thigh of Travis Bickle, an illuminated driver once played by Robert De Niro, and polishing the motif of a buried violence asking only to spring forth (an outburst in which many of the demons of contemporary America show themselves). Master Gardenerhis twenty-third feature film, the work of an old master at the height of his art, offers a new incursion into these twists and turns of the human soul.
After the two previous installments on the obsession with repentance, Master Gardener comes to close a triptych in line with Diary of a country priest (1951), by Robert Bresson. Like the Calvinist pastor of On the way to redemption (2017) and the poker player of The Card Counter (2021), this last film centers on a character voluntarily absorbed by a routine, in order to stifle the still burning burn of a cursed past, which ebbs in bits.
The shameful trace of evil
Narvel Roth (Joel Edgerton), head horticulturist of a vast private estate, maintains for his owner, the wealthy Mrs Haverhill (Sigourney Weaver), organizer of charity galas, the sumptuous flower gardens that make her reputation. The meticulous care he puts into it contains the seed of redemption.
A former prisoner on parole, the gardener actually drags a liability as a henchman for a Proud Boys-style neo-Nazi militia, of which he keeps the shameful trace on his body: swastikas and other symbols tattooed on his chest and on his chest. back. The mistress of the house entrusts her as an apprentice to her Métis great-niece, Maya (Quintessa Swindell), a young woman adrift. The niece and the gardener fall in love, not without the street and its slippery slopes reminding them, precipitating the hour of choice.
Simplicity, here, is essential: a handful of characters, a few sets, the elementary motifs of redemption that Paul Schrader tirelessly brings back to life, but each choice of staging counts, each gesture, each cut, each look contributes to lead the drama at destination.
This is none other than the ritualized return to an inexorable violence, in which the buried powers of the character are actualized. It is however a three-term equation that Schrader poses, the horticulturist maintaining very codified sexual relations with the rich heiress, responding to a very precise ritual, where class affects are inextricably mixed: the employer dominates, the horticulturist performs, in a disturbing continuity with the life to which he compels himself the rest of the time.
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