RECOMMENDED
Director-producer Scott Hamilton Kennedy’s Oscar-nominated documentary “The Garden” finds an element subject: the fruit of the earth and those who sow and reap it. Over the course of three years, Kennedy follows a community garden in South Central Los Angeles, fourteen acres of green in a neighborhood most known for the 1992 riots after the Rodney King verdict. Many of these small farmers are emigrants, and their recourse when the garden bursting with vegetables, flowers and fruit, is about to be bulldozed by the city seems, at first, minimal. Activists including Daryl Hannah, Danny Glover and Joan Baez become involved. Dirty dealings by the landowner are alleged. There’s a cornucopia of conflict. Kennedy’s cinematography is abundantly lush. 80m. (Ray Pride)
Opening Friday at Siskel Film Center.
