Wallace and Gromit and the Power of Urban Farming

Films about inner-city gardens suggest interactions between human and nonhuman nature may restore both, providing psychological benefits for humans that also encourage the nurturing that allows the natural world to thrive. But that psychological need to affiliate with nature only becomes possible if other human basic needs are fulfilled. 

When the garden turns into a source of food, it begins to serve those without access to fresh fruits and vegetables. Ideally it also transforms food deserts into urban farms that rest on principles of the sustainable development movement espoused by the Brundtland Commission. According to the Commission’s 1987 report, sustainable development is simply the “ability to make development sustainable—to ensure that it meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (quoted in Kates, et al 8). Documentaries and fictional films exploring urban farming celebrate those farms that promote sustainable development practices. The best of these films showcase practices that align and facilitate sustainable economic, social, and environmental development. 

One of the most popular urban farming films, the stop-action animation wonder Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005), illustrates how human and nonhuman nature can work collaboratively to facilitate sustainable development in a community of urban farms. Set in an urban setting where police officers still walk a beat, The Curse of the Were Rabbit offers both laughs and suspense, with a plot addressing individual farms constructed not only to supply food but also to grow champion vegetables for an annual contest. When a giant were-rabbit begins devouring award-winning vegetables, owners and operators of the Anti-Pesto company, Wallace (Peter Sallis) and his dog Gromit set out to stop the destruction and save the farmers and their annual event. 

Although this comic plot seems more like entertainment than bearer of environmental message, the resolution to the conflict points toward the kind of sustainable development recommended by the Brundtland Commission. Ultimately Wallace and Gromit not only solve the mystery when they discover the source of the were-rabbit; they also choose a sustainable solution that protects vegetables, rabbits, and the community: a wildlife refuge on Lady Campanula Tottington’s (Helena Bonham Carter) estate that allows both urban farms and bunnies to prosper. 

The Scent of Green Papaya and Gardens, conclusion

When Mui dresses in the clothes her former mistress gave her, even painting her lips with lipstick, Khuyen notices her, but the camera reveals not her entrance into modern Vietnam but her connection with the garden. Shots of her inside and out through latticed windows reveal how her beauty aligns with that of nature. Close-ups of rainwater juxtaposed with the shower in which Mui washes her hair reinforce this connection. When Khuyen enters her room, he sees the cricket and hears frogs before noting her beauty.

Although Mui does break up Khuyen’s romantic relationship, the film suggests he has chosen well. Mui writes, “In my garden, there is a papaya tree where papaya hang in bunches.” To illustrate her words, she washes and prepares a papaya, slicing it, revealing the seeds in extreme close-up, and picking out one she places on Khuyen’s plate. 

These close-ups of an open white-seeded papaya juxtapose with shots of a now-pregnant Mui further connecting human and nonhuman nature in the film. The last lines she reads during a literacy lesson reinforce this connection. Now “cherry trees are gripped in shadow” and the end is announced atop a statue of Buddha. The Scent of Green Papaya shows us what an ideal middle place might look like, if only in a fictional narrative and a visually poetic film.

The Scent of Green Papayas and Gardens, continued

The contrast between Mui and the family continues ten years later, when Mui, now twenty, is forced to leave the family and serve her childhood crush, Khuyen (Hoa Hoi Vuong). The lizards climbing out of vases in these 1961 scenes seem to suggest the civil war outside the garden gates, a point amplified by the sounds of war planes overhead. 

But Mui still watches ants in the courtyard and cares for her cricket. With the father dead and mistress in bad health, however, a daughter-in-law forces Mui to leave, to save money and empty the garden for a parrot farm. Only the mistress laments Mui’s departure, giving her gifts she would have shared with the lost daughter.

When Mui leaves, she takes the crickets and bids the garden and mistress goodbye, taking a portion of the garden with her. And in her new home, Mui bridges the natural world and corrupted middle class together through her relationship with Khuyen and the plants both inside and out, initiating a middle place where both human and nonhuman nature can thrive. She waters potted plants in an inner courtyard, watches toads on leaves, and again cooks meals outside, making Khuyen dinner while he plays Gershwin tunes on the piano. 

Here war planes are heard only in the background and are nearly shut out by the piano and birdsongs.  

Although Khuyen is dating a Westernized woman, Mui watches him and nurtures him as carefully as she feeds her cricket and waters frogs in the courtyard. In this house, pots are full of plants instead of empty adornments. And instead of taunting or ignoring her, Khuyen notices Mui’s connection with nature and careful attention to him, bridging nature with the contemporary world.

Post-Colonial Gardens in The Scent of Green Papaya (1993)

In The Scent of Green Papaya, a courtyard garden serves as young servant Mui’s (Man San Lu and Tran Nu Yên-Khê) respite from a coming war and a 1950s and 1960s bustling city outside its walls, but it also shelters her from the traumatized family she serves, moving her to a middle place like that Adamson describes. Washington Post critic Hal Hinson explains, “In The Scent of Green Papaya, Vietnamese filmmaker Tran Anh Hung’s exquisite, inscrutable elegy for the lost country of his birth, time is not counted in minutes or hours, but in human measures—heartbeats and muffled prayers.” 

We agree but would add nature to the mix, since the inner garden serves as a character in communion with protagonist Mui. For example, when ten-year-old Mui enters the garden, vines, bonsai trees, potted plants, and papaya trees seem to greet her before an older servant Thi (Nguyen Anh Hoa) picking a papaya meets her and leads her to her sleeping quarters. After her long walk from the village, the mistress of her new household (Truong Thi Loc) suggests she sleep, but instead Mui gazes at the plants and birds in the garden, watching milk on a leaf falling from the stem left by the papaya. We see the stem and milk in close-up, turning it into a broad landscape. Lizards climbing trees, frogs in a pond, and singing crickets mesmerize Mui. She also nurtures a cricket, feeding and watering it in its homemade cage. Close-ups of an open white seeded papaya highlight Mui’s natural development. Ultimately, Mui becomes part of the garden, preparing meals for the family and eating leftovers like the ants she watches carry rice scraps to their nests.

Mui’s reverence for nature in the garden contrasts dramatically with the dysfunctional relationships the father and sons have with one another and the natural world. Mui listens to birds sing while she cleans the floor on her knees, but the father (Ngoc Trung Tran) stays in his room playing a stringed instrument, grieving a lost daughter and blaming himself for her death. Since he left with all their money and jewels before her death, he has good cause for his guilt. Without money, the mother could not afford the doctor or medicine to treat her. And when he leaves again, he returns only to die in his bed. The middle son also watches insects, but he pins them to his wall. And when he sees ants carrying crumbs on his windowsill, he pours melted wax over them. He smashes ants struggling to escape the wax. The youngest son spills water on Mui and farts at her as he leaves. Instead of admiring the work of lizards, he ties one to a stick and scares Mui with it. He even urinates in a vase in front of Mui and outside beside the papaya tree. Only the mistress treats Mui and the courtyard garden with respect, perhaps because Mui so reminds her of a daughter who died seven years ago.