Eden Court
Cinema
nd
Tuesday 2 May 2017 at
7.15pm
The Secret Garden (1993)
(Based On The Book by Frances Hodgson Burnett)
Director: Agnieszka Holland
Cast: Kate Maberly as Mary Lennox; Heydon Prowse as Colin; Andrew Knott as Dickon;
Laura Crossley as Martha; Maggie Smith as Mrs. Medlock
What's truly marvellous about this Victorian fable is the wonderful performances from the
child actors." Dennis Schwartz, 2008
Like all great stories for children, The Secret Garden contains powerful truths just beneath the
surface. There is always a level at which the story is telling children about more than just events; it is
telling them about the nature of life. That was the feeling I had when I read Frances Hodgson
Burnett's book many years ago, and it is a feeling that comes back powerfully while watching
Agnieszka Holland's new film.
Some "children's films" are only for children. Some can be watched by the whole family. Others are
so good they seem hardly intended for children at all, and "The Secret Garden" falls in that category.
It is a work of beauty, poetry and deep mystery, and watching it is like entering for a time into a
closed world where one's destiny may be discovered.
The film tells the story, familiar to generations, of a young girl orphaned in India in the early years of
this century, and sent home to England to live on the vast estate of an uncle. Misselthwaite Manor is
a gloomy and forbidding pile in Yorkshire - a construction of stone, wood, metal, secrets and ancient
wounds. The heroine, whose name is Mary Lennox (Kate Maberly), arrives from her long sea
journey to be met with a sniff and a stern look from Mrs. Medlock (Maggie Smith), who manages the
place in the absence of the uncle, Lord Archibald Craven (John Lynch). Mary quickly gathers that
this uncle is almost always absent, traveling in far places in an attempt to forget the heartbreaking
death of his young bride some years earlier.
There is little for Mary to do in the mansion but explore, and soon she finds secret passageways and
even the bedroom of her late aunt - and in the bedroom, a key to a secret garden. She makes
friends with a boy named Dickon (Andrew Knott), whose sister is a maid at Misselthwaite, and
together they play in the garden, and he whispers the manor's great secret: The aunt died in
childbirth, but her son, now 9 or 10 years old, still lives in the manor, confined to his bed, unable to
walk.
Mary goes exploring, and finds the little boy, named Colin (Heydon Prowse). He has lived a life of
great sadness, confined to his room, able to see only the sky from the windows visible from his bed.
Mary determines he must see his mother's secret garden, and she and Dickon wheel him there in an
invalid's chair, stealing him out of the house under the very nose of Mrs. Medlock.
All of this could be told in a simple and insipid story, I am sure, with cute kids sneaking around the
corridors. But Holland is alert to the buried meanings of her story, and she has encouraged her
actors to act their age - to be smart, resourceful and articulate. They are so good at their jobs that we
stop being aware they are children, and enter into full identification with their quest.
More of the story I must not tell, except to mention in passing the gaunt dignity of Uncle Archibald,
played by Lynch with the kind of weary, sensual sadness that Jeremy Irons used to have a corner
on.
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By the end of the film I was surprised by how much I was moved; how much I had come to care
about the lonely little boy, the orphaned girl, and the garden that a dead woman had prepared for
them.
This is Holland's first American film, backed by Francis Ford Coppola and produced by his longtime
associates Fred Fuchs, Fred Roos and Tom Luddy. Holland's earlier work includes "Europa,
Europa," a story of a Jewish boy who is able to save his life by passing for a Nazi youth brigade
member, and "Olivier, Olivier," another case of mysterious identity, about a long-lost son who may or
may not have been found again.
Roger Ebert, August 13, 1993
Frances Hodgson Burnett's beloved children's classic of 1911 is written by Caroline Thompson and
magically helmed in a beautiful setting by the Polish-born Agnieszka Holland ("Total Eclipse"/"The
Third Miracle"/"Europa Europa"). It's a handsome remake of Fred M. Wilcox's 1949 Hollywood
version. What's truly marvellous about this Victorian fable is the wonderful performances from the
child actors. It leaves one with the uplifting theme that happiness can be found in your own
backyard, especially if you are born into wealth.
Mary Lennox (Kate Maberly) is a lonely ten-year-old whose wealthy partygoing parents are too
selfish in craving their own pleasures to spend time with their daughter. When an earthquake hits the
part of India they are residing as colonialists, Mary survives but her parents don't. The orphan is sent
to Misselthwaite Manor on the Yorkshire moors to live with her uncle, Lord Archibald Craven (John
Lynch), a reclusive hunchback whose wife died ten years ago and he's been despondent ever since.
His wife was the twin sister of Mary's mother. The gloomy manor is run by the no-nonsense
imperious housekeeper, Mrs. Medlock (Maggie Smith), who takes an instant dislike to the curious
child and gives her the cold-shoulder.
The spoilt Mary, a real sourpuss, rebels against the housekeeper's commands to not snoop around
the 100-room manor and soon befriends kindly country boy, with a feel for nature, Dickon (Andrew
Knott) and her same aged spoiled, bedridden sickly cousin Colin (Heydon Prowse), who never left
his room and all the windows are nailed shut because it's thought fresh air would kill him. The trio
trespass in Colin's mother's secret garden that Lord Archibald Craven kept locked and would not let
anyone enter since her death. The playful company of Mary and Dickon and the beautiful garden
with robins turn into a recuperative influence for Colin, as Mary states: "You can see the whole world
in a garden."
Kate Maberly is just terrific as the pouty girl you can't dislike despite her snooty attitude... It's the kind
of children's film that even adults can relish.
Dennis Schwartz: "Ozus' World Movie Reviews" 17th February 2008
Our next screening………………………….…The Intruder / L’Intrus
The fourth and last film in our………………...Female Directors Season
Eden Court Cinema
Tuesday 16th May 2017 at
7.15pm
Claire Denis's The Intruder
(L'Intrus) is a film as primal and
resonant as the myths and fairy
tales one reads as a child or the
dreams that psychoanalysts call
“autobiographical” in that they
replay the major events and
turning points of one's life in a way
that, despite the jumble of time
and space, is exceptionally vivid
and realistic in its detail
Inverness Film Fans (InFiFa) meet
fortnightly at Eden Court Cinema for
screenings and post film discussions.
For more info and to join is free, go
to:
www.invernessfilmfans.org
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