Sex, love and literature are entwined in Chilean writer-director Cristian Jimenez’s second feature (adapted from an acclaimed novella of the same name), which premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at last year’s Cannes Film Festival.
Eight years on from his years as a well-meaning, if a little ineffectual, literature student, Julio is a struggling writer who is offered the opportunity to help a well-known author type up the manuscript of his next novel. Ultimately passed over for the role, he tells his lover (and neighbour) otherwise, and instead begins writing his own story based on the relationship he was in with fellow student Emilia almost a decade earlier.
His delving into the past reawakens his passion to write and also brings out a yearning for Emilia, who he has subsequently lost contact with. Julio begins to reassess his life, but an attempt to right any wrongs may already be too late.
Light on drama but heavy on the sensual and whimsy, Bonsai is a slow, meditative film but it’s also very watchable. This is largely due to the enigmatic presence of male lead Diego Noguera and Jimenez’s unhurried direction, which allows for the audience to become intimately immersed in the life of the characters and their romantic entanglements, particularly Julio and Emilia’s time together.
The narrative flits between Julio’s uni years and his later life in an unfussy, organic fashion (Jimenez uses a book chapter-style to identify this), tying together the two timelines in a satisfyingly cinematic and emotional way. The director is also very adept at capturing small, yet telling moment of real and very relatable human actions. All of these are often framed in visually-pleasing approach, whether it’s the abstract glimpse of the warm glow of naked human figures in a post-coital embrace, or the two lovers idly watching the world go by in the park.
A talky affair with little in the way of conflict and plot (the characters do spend quite a bit of time chatting about Proust!), Bonsai may ostensibly look like yet another impenetrable, high-brow foreign arthouse feature to some, but if you’re a fan of the recent spate of thoughtful, relationship-based anti-dramas (such as the UK indie hit 
Weekend and the mumblecore movement from the US) you’ll thoroughly enjoy what’s on offer.
The film’s title stems from a segment in the film where Julio purchases one of those miniature pot plants, giving it the care and nurturing that perhaps he failed to provide his first real love with. Like that character, you’ll be rewarded by putting in some time and effort with Bonsai.
[Rating:4/5]
