CineM Review: The Secret Garden (1993)

"How does your garden grow?"

Watching ‘The Secret Garden’ made me realise a few things about children. Firstly, that their world though appearing carefree, is just as serious as ours, inhabited as it is also by the more‘adult-like’ emotions of rejection, coercion, belief and finally redemption. Secondly, we as children make the best friendships and though they may not necessarily last a lifetime, that innocence and feeling of something special may last a whole lifetime. And these childhood friendships are not as hard to establish either – sometimes even a shared secret or joy in playing a mutual game suffices to create that wonderful bond. Lastly, children possess a single-minded ability to make up their own ideas and stick to them with a great finality. ‘The Secret Garden’ explores this complex world of children with an understanding and a delicacy which is startling.

This film directed by Agnieszka Holland who has earlier made the children-themed ‘Europa Europa’ and ‘Olivier Olivier’, has adapted the screenplay from Frances Hodgson Burnett's 1911 novel of the same title. The author who had herself led a chequered life, had written a host of romantic and children books. Though the ‘The Secret Garden’ was relatively unheralded during the author’s lifetime, it has subsequently emerged as one the classic English books ever written for children, and the film by staying true to the book, does ample justice to the ideals prescribed therein.

As stories meant for children go, ‘The Secret Garden’ too throws its characters onto a path of vicissitudes, discovery and triumph. Orphaned in India, young Mary Lennox (played to perfection by Kate Maberly) comes to live with her uncle in his rambling estate, Misselthwaite Manor. This estate is also home to a vague sense of disquiet and a human entourage comprising of a cherub of a housemaid, Martha (acted endearingly by Laura Crossley), her Huckleberry-esque brother named Dickon (Andrew Knott), and a strict and forbidding housekeeper Mrs. Medlock (Maggie Smith). Set in the moors of Yorkshire, the estate also houses a secret garden which belonged to Mary’s aunt (her mother’s twin sister), whose death has plunged her uncle and everything in Misselthwaite Manor into a pall of relentless gloom. Mary’s grey and massive room in the grey and massive manor is swathed with intricate and heavy-looking tapestries – the whole look seemingly consistent with a house that can only be home to dour-looking adults, and no children.

Mary manages to splash her own burst of individual energy when she makes a series of strange discoveries, starting with a secret passageway in the manor leading to her dead aunt’s secluded room, a tentative friendship with a trilling robin who leads her into her aunt’s garden, now locked away and running wild and finally, her cousin Colin (Heydon Prowse) who is proclaimed too frail and lives like a condemned person, secreted in some gloomy room with barricaded windows inside that massive house. With these discoveries in that seemingly distant house, Mary proceeds to blaze a child-like path of joyful effort, honest intentions, clear-speak and simple love which goes around in a circle, enveloping the entire household in a new bond of life.

Kate Maberly who had earlier acted in a series of BBC productions brings in a petulant but lovable streak into the character; observe her diminutive jaw stuck out in moments of impetuous anger, the bitterness in her words when she spits them in the face of un-understanding adult supervision, and the smile in her eyes when she gets her way. Mary when she starts out is not very dissimilar to the cantankerous, almost infuriatingly stubborn Colin who is wedded to the belief that he is facing imminent death. As the smart and articulate Mary first aided by the simple country boy skills of Dickon sets out to bring the long-neglected garden alive, and then accompanied by the till-now reclusive cousin continues her incursions into the joyousness and freshness of a new spring now shining upon Misselthwaithe, we witness a transformation. And this transformation is all around – from the bare, weed-overgrown garden now bristling with a colourful bloom of flowers, to the new-found health and vigour in Colin, and the blossoming of the goodness that lies inside Mary’s heart.

This film succeeds at numerous levels; the first obvious mark for me was the superlative acting by all the characters, in particular the young ensemble of Mary, Martha, Dickon and Colin, and finally Mrs. Medlock. Exchanges between children are always fascinating, underlined as they are by their simple joys, tantrums and fears. There is in particular one exchange between the determined Mary and clamorous Colin, when she confronts her cousin with her unfailing belief in his good health borne out of the simple common sense which children do possess. Colin protests and creates a scene, twitching his lips at Mary’s stern rebukes and at last, capitulates. There is another moment in the film when the 3 children gather around a bonfire and circle it in a sort of trance-like surrender, mumbling inanities but calling out for a miracle with a simple but deep fervor which compels even an attending adult to participate in the unlikely voodoo dance. There is also another delightful moment on a swing when Mary and Dickon exchange a glance (is it the first awakening of something greater than just friendship??) of something significant but as yet, indecipherable.

The film also succeeds in capturing other moments of beauty (great cinematography by Roger Deakins). Since I love flowers and gardens, the time-lapse photography of blooming flowers rising up from the ground under the love and care of Mary & Co. was particularly mesmerising. In a film with so many deft touches, the allegory of the secret garden barred and neglected and then, brought back to life by the tender hands of the young children stands tall and unshakeable. In a sense, our lives are also disconcerting similar.

This is a film about the magic which is nothing but irresolute belief in positiveness, and about children. Just like a dear friend of mine who recently got a wonderful opportunity to interact with kids and bring together a great skit by harnessing the resourcefulness and the innate grace of young children, I too have immense belief in the powers that lie hidden inside their immense throbbing hearts.

CineM’s Verdict: