I very much like non-verbal films, which just look at their objects, without a guiding narration telling you what to think about them. In the best of cases it can be a real contemplation of the world around us.
This is the first of two films by Yurara Sarara on the gardens in Japan, the first one centres on gardens in and around Kyoto. Mainly they seem to be gardens open to the public, and occasionally they are attached to meditation retreat centres or temples.
They are in many ways like living postcards of the scenes they visit, only sometimes does the frame of the camera move, or a visitor move through the frame. Sometimes there are waterfalls, or light rains animating the scene.
The gardens themselves are minimal in the sense that they are almost natural gardens, which have only seen a light guidance, laying a path, erecting a shrine, but never instrusively. The soundtrack is also minimal and ambient, as fitting as the gardens we see.
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to see an album of screenshots click here