Gardening with Soul: Movie Review

Gardening with Soul: Movie Review

Director: Jess Feast

Kiwi doco Gardening with Soul has a simple mantra - "You can't be bored in a garden". It's a doco featuring gardening expert and nun extraordinaire, Sister Loloya Galvin.

She's the main gardener of the Home of Compassion in Island Bay in the capital. 

By all stretches of the imagination, she's a local legend - espousing gardening tips as well as beavering around the bushes and pottering in among the plants while inspiring others within the community to take up the gardening. 

But director Jess Feast has taken in more than just the magnificent gardens which Loloya tends to and landscapes she dwells in- and has woven together a story of social history in New Zealand as well as philosophical elements. 

Loloya worked as a nurse with sick children and also raised children with disabilities. What follows is an insight into a life gone by and a woman whose very soul has always been in the heart of her community. 90 year old Loloya has some great moments as she reminisces among the root veg, (She believes if everyone had a shed to go to, there would be no domestic violence within New Zealand).

Thanks to gentle Q&As from Jess, this quietly moving spiritual reflection on a life is beautifully shot, socially fascinating and completely charming. 

It's a social snapshot of a New Zealand which may be in the past, but whose roots, thanks to Sister Loloya, have continued to grow and flourish long after the winds of change have blown through.

Rating: