tree

It’s not merely trendy psychologizing to salute the qualities of a sturdy tree: a humbling reminder of time’s immensity, but also a living embodiment of shelter, change and growth. Leave it, then, to a massive gingko on the grounds of a medieval German town’s college to cosmically center the three-pronged, multi-generational character study “Silent Friend” from Hungarian filmmaker Ildikó Enyedi.

Enyedi, from her mesmeric, calling-card period lark “My Twentieth Century” to the eccentric love story “On Body and Soul,” has always been preoccupied with that realm in which the everyday meets the all-seeing and possibility is awakened. So it shouldn’t surprise anyone that she’d give a starring role to a 200-year-old tree, which just may inspire the needed answers. And why not? Our living, “breathing,” sky-reaching neighbors have considerable communication skills with each other.

Our entryway is a modern day neuroscientist played by Tony Leung Chiu-wai (and called Tony), who arrives at the University of Marburg as a visiting professor ready to further his groundbreaking research into the mysteries of infant brain development. The gig becomes a lonely endeavor, however, when the pandemic hits and he’s confined to a depopulated campus, sent unwillingly into a kind of monkhood.

It’s as if the nearby natural world, photographed by Gergely Pálos and edited by Károly Szalai, was just waiting for such a solitary moment to draw Tony’s undivided attention into the prospect of green intelligence.

In tandem, Enyedi transports us to 1908 to meet aspiring botanist Grete (Luna Wedler), the university’s first female student, subjected to cruelly patronizing treatment by smug male elders, yet driven to see plants anew when introduced to the light-capturing rigor of photography. The movie’s third woven-in protagonist is a wide-eyed, resourceful farm boy, Hannes (Enzo Brumm), in 1972. While his fellow students spark to the winds of political change and sexual freedom, he becomes fixated on what a lone geranium, imaginatively monitored on its windowsill, might have to convey if given the chance.

The fluid, idiosyncratic charm of “Silent Friend” — which never feels like two and a half hours — is in Enyedi’s heartfelt belief that curiosity is simply a garden that grows progress. It doesn’t hurt, of course, that this veteran dreamweaver’s key cast are entrancing, inviting specimens themselves, led by an inner glow of compassion in Leung that feels like its own natural energy source. When his character contacts Léa Seydoux’s French plant expert, it becomes almost too much rapturously intelligent star wattage for one quietly poetic movie, even if these god-tier actors are just zooming and talking shop.

Hardly anything is overdone here and, in one essential way, Enyedi is also making the case for movies themselves as phenomena to protect and treasure: ecosystems of light, texture, wonder and nourishment. Visually, the film toggles between intimate 35mm black-and-white, grainy 16mm color and multi-purpose digital cameras that visually represent distinct eras. Needless to say, that gingko tree is sublime and majestic in all of them.

WASHINGTON — A federal judge told the U.S. government Monday not to cut down more than 10 trees without first providing notice amid a legal dispute at a historic Washington golf course that President Trump plans to renovate.

U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes said during a remote hearing that she wasn’t going to issue a temporary restraining order just yet in the case brought by the DC Preservation League. She also told the National Park Service that it should first discuss any plans with government lawyers if it was going to cut down more than 10 trees.

Monday’s hearing came after the plaintiff’s emergency petition seeking to stop work at the course, citing news reports that major renovations were to begin Monday.

Kevin Griess, the superintendent of the National Mall and Memorial Parks for the Park Service, said during the hearing there was no plan to begin such work Monday but added that a safety assessment was underway.

Reyes told the parties she didn’t want to play the role of the “Parks and Rec” department, an allusion to the sitcom, but said she also didn’t want trees being bulldozed.

“I’m no Amy Poehler,” she said referring to the show’s star.

At one point during Monday’s hearing, the judge said she was made aware that closure signs had been put up at the site, which led to Griess’ asking someone to check. He later reported that there were no such signs. Reyes asked that if any such signs were found that the government’s attorney be told.

The complaint filed against the Department of the Interior argues that the Trump administration’s reconstruction of East Potomac Park, including the East Potomac Golf Course, would violate the congressional act that created the park in 1897. The roughly 130-year-old act established the park for the “recreation and the pleasure of the people.” The course itself opened in 1919.

Trump, an avid golfer, also plans on renovating a military golf course just outside Washington that has been used by past presidents going back decades.

Eaton wildfire survivors’ anger about Southern California Edison’s burying of electric wires in Altadena boiled over Tuesday with residents calling on government officials to temporarily halt the work.

In a letter to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, more than 120 Altadena residents and the town’s council wrote that they had witnessed “manifest failures” by Edison in recent months as it has been tearing up streets and digging trenches to bury the wires.

The residents cited the unexpected financial cost of the work to homeowners and possible harm to the town’s remaining trees. They also pointed out how the work will leave telecommunication wires above ground on poles.

“The current lack of coordination is compounding the stress of a community still reeling from the Eaton Fire, and risks causing further irreparable harm,” the residents wrote.

The council voted unanimously Tuesday night to send the letter.

Scott Johnson, an Edison spokesman, said Wednesday that the company has been working to address the concerns, including by looking for other sources of funds to help pay for the homeowners’ costs.

“We recognize this community has already faced a number of challenges,” he said.

Johnson said the company will allow homeowners to keep existing overhead lines connecting their homes to the grid if they are worried about the cost.

Edison’s crews, Johnson said, have also been trained to use equipment that avoids roots and preserves the health of trees.

The utility has said that burying the wires as the town rebuilds thousands of homes destroyed in the fire will make the electrical grid safer and more reliable.

But anger has grown as work crews have shown up unexpectedly and residents learned they’re on the hook to pay tens of thousands of dollars to connect their homes to the buried lines.

Residents have also found the crews digging under the town’s oak and pine trees that survived last year’s fire. Arborists say the trenches could destroy the roots of some of the last remaining trees and kill them.

Amy Bodek, the county’s regional planning director, recently warned Edison that a government ordinance protects oak trees and that “utility trenching is not exempt from these requirements.”

Residents have also pointed out that in much of Altadena, the telecom companies, including Spectrum and AT&T, have not agreed to bury their wires in Edison’s trenches. That means the telecom wires will remain on poles above ground, which residents say is visually unappealing.

“While our community supports the long-term benefits of moving utilities underground, the current execution by SCE is placing undue financial and planning burdens on homeowners, causing irreparable harm to our heritage tree canopy, and proceeding without adequate local oversight,” the residents wrote.

They want the project halted until the problems are addressed.

Edison announced last year that it would spend as much as $925 million to underground and rebuild its grid in Altadena and Malibu, where the Palisades fire caused devastation.

The work — which costs an estimated $4 million per mile — will earn the utility millions of dollars in profits as its electric customers pay for it over the next decades.

Pedro Pizarro, chief executive of Edison International, told Gov. Gavin Newsom last year that state utility rules would require Altadena and Malibu homeowners to pay to underground the electric wire from their property line to the panel on their house. Pizarro estimated it would cost $8,000 to $10,000 for each home.

But some residents, who need to dig long trenches, say it will cost them much more.

“We are rebuilding and with the insurance shortfall, our finances are stretched already,” Marilyn Chong, an Altadena resident, wrote in a comment attached to the letter. “Incurring the additional burden of financing SCE’s infrastructure is not something we can or should have to do.”

Other fire survivors complained of Edison’s lack of planning and coordination with residents.

“I’ve started rebuilding, and apparently there won’t be underground power lines for me to connect with in time when my house will be done,” wrote Gail Murphy. “So apparently I’m supposed to be using a generator, and for how long!?”

Johnson said the company has set up a phone line for people with concerns or questions. That line — 1-800-250-7339 — is answered Monday through Saturday, he said.

Residents can also go to Edison’s office in Altadena at 2680 Fair Oaks Avenue. The office is open Monday to Friday from 8 to 4:30.

It’s unclear if the Eaton fire would have been less disastrous if Altadena’s neighborhood power lines had been buried.

The blaze ignited under Edison’s towering transmission lines that run through Eaton Canyon. Those lines carry bulk power through the company’s territory. In Altadena, Edison is burying the smaller distribution lines, which carry power to homes.

The government investigation into the cause of the fire has not yet been released. Pizarro has said that a leading theory is that a century-old transmission line, which had not carried power for 50 years, somehow re-energized to spark the blaze.

The fire killed at least 19 people and destroyed more than 9,400 homes and other structures.