“Zen and the Art of Landscaping”
When I hear the word Zen, a scene of trinkling fountains and tranquility pops into my mind. I imagine counting my breaths and closing my eyes, patiently waiting for serenity and peace to overcome my body. I am my happiest and most confident when I reach my peak of tranquility and meditative thinking. Zen, in this short, does provide the family with numerous self-realizations, but ironically does not produce the calm, self-realization that the practice of Zen generally produces. Instead, chaos overcomes the family and the truths about their lives spill out into a jumbled mess. Zen’s presence in their life ultimately ruins their family dynamic and shatters all that they appear to be, but the truth is, harshly, revealed. The irony in Zen’s character pushes this “normal, well kempt” family to perceive who they truly were: broken, selfish, conniving people. They were the ultimate contradiction to the image that their home gives across, supporting the age-old cliché of “don’t judge a book by its cover”.
The ending of the short intrigued me; I needed (not wanted, but needed) to see what happened to the broken family and how Zen carried on after becoming a “home wrecker”. The manner in which Zen ran away from Andy and “daddy” towards the end led me to believe that they were going to do whatever was possible to retain their sparkling, perfect image. Zen was the only one who had seen this truth, and, in the end, he protected himself which led this family into further self realization that the truth is running amok.
This film was very well made. I did find the dialogue to be occasionally cheesy, but much of that dialogue was required to understand the perplexity of this situation. The music would change from eerie and mysterious in times of confession to whimsical and mocking when the family members were denying who they truly were.
Families are too complicated.
