NZIFF Review: ‘Gardening With Soul’

Last year we got to see nuns at work in the small community of Jerusalem in How Far Is Heaven. This year we’re even closer to home with Jess Feast’s insightful and compassionate film about Sister Loyola and her work with the Sisters of Compassion in Island Bay.

A keen gardener, even at 90, Sister Loyola is still the head gardener at the Home of Compassion on Wellington’s South coast. The work is often heavy but Sister Loyola does the bulk of it herself, sometimes even on crutches.

Feast spent a year with the nun, following her and her garden through the seasons. Sister Loyola’s care of the land and what grows on it is shown to be an extension of the mission she vowed to undertake when she joined the order ‘to meet the needs of the oppressed and powerless in their communities’.

She speaks about her life candidly, offering up insight into the New Zealand of the past and into why someone might choose to become a nun in the first place. Never have I heard such candid discussion of religion and the afterlife from someone who believes.  Sister Loyola’ ability to talk about and analyse her faith and its shortcomings is refreshing.

Far from being a retreat from the real world, she shows her choice to be a nun as quite the opposite – with her work over the years including nurturing sick and disabled children, unwed mothers, helping grieving mothers of stillborn babies and more.

Gardening with Soul is an engaging portrait of a down to earth, passionate and devout woman who continues to work small miracles over the years from her little patch in Island Bay.

7/10

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