Cinematic Gardens and the Subconscious : Nature, Symbolism, and the Psyche on Film

INTRODUCTION

In the history of cinema, gardens, parks, courtyards, and other green spaces have always been much more than mere backdrops or filming locations. They act as sites where desires, anxieties, and fantasies come to life—places where characters search for meaning, whether in peaceful sanctuaries or mysterious, maze-like landscapes. These environments also present a vision of nature shaped and maintained by human hands, often contrasted with wild, untamed areas—highlighting the ongoing tension between order and chaos.

Whether it’s the enclosed garden in The Secret Garden (1993), reflecting grief and self-discovery; the manicured suburban lawns in Broken Flowers (2005), signaling social status; the grand palace gardens in Last Year at Marienbad (1961), distorting time and memory; the colonial plots in The New World (2005), revealing power dynamics between settlers and Indigenous peoples; or the stylized battlefield of the Japanese garden in Kill Bill (2003)—gardens in film have long mirrored deeper social realities or emotional states, serving as open windows into the unconscious.

Aimed at both film enthusiasts and garden lovers, this lecture series explores the role and symbolism of cinematic gardens across four themed sessions: Gardens & Power, Gardens & Love, Gardens & Crime, and Gardens & The Gothic.

In films that blend fantasy and horror, gardens often adopt a distinctly Gothic quality, becoming liminal spaces where rational order unravels, and the subconscious takes hold.

In Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland (2010), a bizarre garden overflowing with giant plants and surreal creatures, mirrors Alice’s struggle with identity and belonging. Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) entwines a woodland maze with the brutal historical reality of Francoist Spain, weaving supernatural elements into the horrors of war seen through the eyes of a child, and Edward Scissorhands (1990) uses elaborate topiaries to reflect the protagonist’s fragile sense of self as an outsider in suburban America.

Beyond these enchanting yet unsettling visions, horror cinema takes the concept even further. In Pet Sematary (1989), a seemingly ordinary burial plot distorts the notion of laying loved ones to rest, hinting at a sinister bond between life, death, and the earth itself, and Annihilation (2018) showcases distorted, mutated plant life, drifting between mesmerizing beauty and existential horror.