I have very powerful memories from the time I was in Japan. I was astonished and filled with wonder. There, I stopped trying to find comparisons with the different ways of gardening I had seen around the world because everything looked new, strange and perfectly accomplished: it was a total immersion in an unknown world.

I hastened to forget what I had learned in the books and through the images of Japan circulating around the world, I was living the moment. I liked this unknown world. I found myself at home. Not as a gardener (I haven’t experienced Japanese gardening) but as a human facing nature.

The presence of a Shinto altar in a Buddhist garden confirmed the idea that the ancestral animism of human societies will not collapse under the weight of reason and this was a relief to me.

The landscape considered through a partition between the near and the far – satoyama, okuyama – giving a place for the human settlement and for the spirits, reminded me of the “fadhy” spaces in Madagasacar or the “leyaks” in Bali. Territories where nature peopled with spirits and free creatures can express themselves. Here it is tanukis, wild boar and deer crossing the road only when the green light turns on in Nara.

I disembarked alone at San Sebastián Station after about three hours of being jolted around on a train heading south from Paris' Austerlitz Station. It was just before noon. The station was small and rural with almost no one in sight. Grey leaden clouds hang low in the sky, chilled by drizzle, carrying the minimum of camera gear in my camera pack, on reflection I must have felt slightly anxious as I nervously looked around. Fortunately, I was soon able to find Clément smiling far away as he stood beside a beaten up old car. It had been around half a year since I met him at a lecture the first time he had visited Japan.

Clément's driving was, unexpectedly a little reckless, but then again I had never imagined him driving before. He drove directly towards home without stalling. While driving, he talked about the things that had caught his interest recently. He had found a lost boot in his garden that was thickly covered with overgrown plants. He told of how he took a liking to the boot and had decorated his entrance with it. Could it be seen as a masterpiece fusing human and plant design?

As I gazed at the view that continuously swerved past on left and right, I lost track of where we were driving. After a while, without even noticing it we had wondered on to a small road surrounded by a forest. The car bumped around on a slightly rough road and we eventually arrived at Clément's home. The Garden in Movement spread out in front of us. Entering my vision first were the tall Katsura tree that soared above the Valley Garden and South American and other plants covered in giant leaves out of proportion with the garden. I wondered where the apple tree Clément had introduced in his lecture in Japan was, which continued to grow after the trunk had fallen over, and searched for the giant hogweed that was a symbol of the start of The Garden in Movement.

With stonewalls covered in vines, the house was picturesque and seemed to merge into the garden, while at the same time resting on an exceptionally impressive expanse of land. On the first floor were the kitchen, dining table and a living room with an old fireplace, the firewood for which was piled up on one wall next to the entrance. Going up to the second floor, I was guided to Clément's office, which had a desk and sofa, and told that I could stay here tonight if I wanted. The Internet router is usually switched off in order not to waste Clément's energy, so I was told that I would need to turn it on if I wanted to use the Internet. Anyhow, I began setting up my camera so I could soon start filming. Outside, wind gently blew raindrops up against the room's large glass window.

Soon after arriving, Clément told me that the playwright Nadège would be visiting to collect material for her own work. By chance, she ended up briefly appearing in the film. Many people visit his garden throughout the year. While waiting for Nadège to arrive, Clément began making us lunch. It was an omelet-like local dish primarily made of ingredients from a vegetable plot in a corner of his garden. I had begun taking footage by this time, and he generously told me that I could film whatever I liked. Impolitely, I even filmed his bedroom, bath and toilet. Suddenly, he asked, would you like me to shown you around the garden? Looking suspiciously at the rain glimmering in the sky, and lacking adequate waterproofing for my equipment, I hurriedly followed behind.

Gilles Cléments' "Garden in Movement" is a breathtaking work: the exact opposite of a willfully designed garden, brought into existence by an unfathomable amount of labor. The result is a beautiful embodiment of nature.
While caring for the many organisms in his garden, the gardener teaches us how nature, humanity, organisms, and culture can be made to coexist. He does this not with difficult words but more quietly, with his demeanor and his way of life.
Sawazaki's cinematography misses none of the beauty of this living garden.
I felt as though the film revealed one way in which our bloated human society can finally come face to face with the natural world.

Reiko Tsubaki
(Associate Curator: Mori Art Museum)

Gilles Cléments' gardening is founded on these simple actions: watch the plants every day, adjust their environment, and help them to grow according to their natural behavior. The result is not simply a garden but a method for coexisting with a world that refuses to conform to our plans. This is the same way in which Sawazaki's camera nestles into Cléments' world: softly sketching out its contours while adhering to Cléments' words to "To do as much as possible with, as little as possible against."

Fumiko Nakamura
(Curator of Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art)

I was reminded of a Chinese fable called "The Wise Man's Garden" that my mother told me as a child. These days I think about how the kudzu vines were not so prevalent when we were more in tune with the natural world. Gilles' way of life is packed full of lessons for our modern society. A film that offers to set us straight by exposing us to its beauty. Should be watched many times over.

Akio Suzuki
(Sound Artist)

Wearing a hat with a tattered brim, Clément works in "The Garden in Movement". I can't help but think that this seemingly unremarkable labor hides a seed that will catalyze and deepen the thoughts of every person who seeks a new (or more fundamental) relationship with nature.

Yasuhiro Odanaka
(Artist / Practitioner of Aikido)

By combining the common, the civic (or the social), and the regional, this piece achieves profound emotional power.

Michio Tase
(Landscape gardener)

This movie is similar to Cléments' garden. Walking slowly through the greenery, the film invites us to stop here and there to gaze around and lovingly caress the plants we find. Rather than cutting through the trees overshadowing a path, we the viewers are asked to make a slight detour to skirt around it. This process lets us examine Cléments' gardening philosophy not only in the garden itself but on the screen through which we see it.

Tetsuya Masaki
(Associate Professor of Kyoto Tachibana University(Architectural design / planning))