The Trees: Growing a Forest at Ground Zero 2016
Distributed by 590films, 42 West Street, Suite 301, Brooklyn, NY 11222
Produced by Scott Elliott, Matt Ozug
Directed by Scott Elliott
DVD , color, 65 min.
High School - General Adult
Architecture, Grief, Landscape Design, Public Art, September 11,
Date Entered: 01/05/2017
Reviewed by Jen Wong, The University of Texas at Austin Materials LabThis hour-long documentary traces the design and execution of the living memorial at the World Trade Center Memorial Plaza in New York. The result of a collaboration between architect Michael Arad and landscape architect Paul Walker, the living memorial is a public park situated on a massive street-level "green roof" on which 400 oak trees and one 9/11 survival trees are planted. Filmed over the course of five years, The Trees seeks a holistic understanding of the project, extending far beyond the conceptual design to include close-up contributions from a diverse group of participants. Tasked with the complex and careful process of sourcing, nurturing, transporting, planting, and maintaining the trees, this group includes the arborist in New Jersey who tends to the hand-selected trees over multiple seasons, a truck driver who transports the trees to their final destination one at a time, and the workers who nurse the survivor tree back to health.
The Trees is a powerful film that effectively demonstrates the role that memorials play in addressing and healing of collective trauma. Furthermore, it emphasizes the symbolic potential and healing power of trees, whose lifetimes often exceed our own. Through a series of individual, intimate moments, the film reveals a reverential gratitude and value placed on plant life not often expressed so openly or effusively. The Trees is highly recommended as a multi-dimensional documentary that covers a historic project from diverse angles, told with an environmental sensitivity that looks towards the future.