THE OLIVE TREE or EL OLIVO. (2016) DIRECTED BY ICIAR BOLLAIN. WRITTEN BY PAUL LAVERTY. STARRING ANNA CASTILLO, PEP AMBROS AND JAVIER GUTIERREZ. REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©
'Not that f***ing tree again...!'
On no account should you watch this film after you've just applied your lovely new eye make-up, because I guarantee you that it'll all be trailing down your face with the tears before the film is done. This Spanish and German language drama will punch you right in the feels, like it did me, and leave your poor little emotions feeling like they've just gone ten rounds with Drederick Tatum from THE SIMPSONS. Isn't it marvellous, all the ways we have for saying that a film is sad...! What a superbly rich lexicon we have...
It's an extraordinary story about a young Spanish girl's positively boundless love for her dear old Grandfather and his for her, but there's even more to it than just that. It's also about the Grandad's undying love for a beautiful big old gnarled olive tree that grows on the family's olive farm (they also raise the most adorable chickens), and his utter devastation when the tree is chopped down and sold for transplant elsewhere.
This heinous act of destruction is strictly business, however, and there's nothing much that Grandad can do about it. His sons who work with him are right. They need the money, the thirty thousand euros that the tree will bring them if sold. What else can they do?
But the old man never recovers from the uprooting and transplantation miles away of his precious tree, and the sight of his little eight-year-old grand-daughter Alma clinging to its branches and crying her eyes out as the tree is chopped down is one of the most lasting images of the film.
Now Alma is an adult, and a lively, bright, feisty, good-humoured adult she is too, as is evidenced by the hilarious prank call to her Uncle Arti at the start of the film. But Grandad, a much older man by now, is sick and the family is even discussing putting him into a home. He no longer talks, he's lost his appetite and also his interest in pretty much everything.
The only person who really seems to understand Grandad's disappearance into this other world where no-one can reach him is Alma. She's convinced that he's grieving for his tree the way that a parent might mourn the loss of a child. When she brings up the subject with her aunts and uncles, who otherwise are all pretty sound, they just say:
'Not that f***ing tree again!'
Let's just say that, at least a decade later if not more, they're sick to the back teeth of hearing about Grandad and his bloody tree. But Alma is stubborn, even to the point of ill-advised folly, and once she gets an idea into her head, she finds it damn near impossible to let go. She's made up her mind to track down Grandad's tree and then bring it back home to the old man before he slips so far into this shadowy other world he inhabits now that he's gone forever...
The quest to locate the tree and then to go and fetch it back is evidence, surely, that the human heart is the most powerful of all organs. Alma enlists the help of her favourite Uncle Arti and also Rafa, a handsome, curly-headed Spanish friend who wants to be more than just a friend to the hot-headed, spirited Alma. Throw in a truck and a giant replica of the Statue of Liberty and we've got ourselves a road-trip, movie buddies...!
It's a film for the modern era as support for Alma's quest grows on Facebook and other social media, thanks to the lovely German girls who are the reason that this beautiful film is part-German language. There's a lot of Skype-ing in the film too and Alma's best friend is even called Wiki, for crying out loud. Phones are making the world a much smaller, more accessible place, a fact which makes Alma's search all the more possible nnd achievable.
But it's a movie for all the ages as well. The two-thousand-year-old olive tree is sacred to Grandad. (Well, anything that's survived for that long has got to be special!) His ties to it are as old and enduring as time itself. He even says that the tree 'doesn't belong to them or to anyone, but to life itself, to history.'
Let's hope that Alma can bring Grandad back his beloved tree before he loses his last tenuous grip on life and reality. Her quest may also mend fences between Alma and her Dad, the man who failed to protect her from the sexual abuse of another man when she was younger.
Let's just say that there's a lot riding on Alma and her tree. Let's pray that things don't go pear-shaped like they usually do in films. We'll be- ahem- rooting for you, Alma...! See what I did there? Oh, never mind. Here are the release details:
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.
Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, film blogger and movie reviewer. She has studied Creative Writing and Film-Making. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, womens' fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra's books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO
You can contact Sandra at:
http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com
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