The Inspirational Message behind Isabelle’s Garden
By Amadeus Finlay
Contributing Writer
The world of cinema has long been the realm of immense budgets and computer generated animation, but in a small corner of southeastern Oklahoma a pair of native filmmakers have successfully challenged the status quo. Debuting to critical acclaim at the Sundance Film Festival, Isabelle’s Garden is a moving, eight-minute film detailing how one young Choctaw girl works through poverty to ensure that her society can benefit from the produce of her vegetable patch.
“My husband, Jeffrey, and I were inspired to make a film about uplifting stories in our communities,” explains the film’s producer, Lauren Palmer.
“Far too often do you see negative stories surrounding Indian Country. We wanted to overturn that perception by allowing a young girl to be the catalyst for change and lifting up her people from poverty and supporting the community.”
The film opens with the familiar sounds of dawn, “weary voices of the crickets and the frogs” as Isabelle describes it, played over a moody summer morning bruised by an irritable tumult of rainclouds. Isabelle wakes up in a lonely house – we see no other people – her dirty feet poking out the end of her bedclothes, the austere surroundings of her bedroom in direct contrast to the abundance reflected in the vegetable patch outside her window.
The house is dusty and untended, the cobwebbed corners sprinkled with dried garden mud. But nothing is by chance in Palmer’s statement piece; all the imagery is intentional, everything deliberately planned to submerge the audience in the reality of Isabelle’s world. Hers is an existence that is focused on the garden, and the few possessions she owns are singularly designed to help to nurture her plants. And it is here that we find the crux of the film, the basis upon which the allegory is formed. Isabelle, despite living in less than favorable circumstances in which she dreams of a world “where poverty doesn’t exist,” is committed to being a symbol of hope, advocating strong social values in a community that needs them most.
She writes words of encouragement on scraps of brown paper, “ahni” (hope) na-yimmi (believe in something) hvpi kvnia kiyo (we will never lose) i-hullo (love), and attaches them to the baskets of vegetables she gives to her neighbors. They are “to lift people’s spirits,” she says, each note as much a cultural marker as a kind gesture.
The film concludes with Isabelle providing her neighbors with their gifts, commentating throughout on the value of community and the promise of cooperation. It is a simple, yet devastatingly effective use of the visual arts to convey a message relevant to so many. Isabelle is a refreshingly honest character, and in 14-year-old Isabelle Cox, the actress who plays the lead character, both film and reality have an icon in the making.
Isabelle has an impressive resume. She has attended the Shakespearean Festival at Southeastern Oklahoma State University on several occasions, and recently served as Little Miss Choctaw Nation. But for all her star-struck experiences, Isabelle Cox is more affected by the stories and issues that have the greatest impact on her people.
“The film is indicative of Native life in many tribes throughout the United States,” explains her father, Nate. “Poverty produces several unfortunate circumstances that Native people struggle with on a daily basis, and this includes accessibility to sufficient food resources.”
“Isabelle loves representing the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma in any capacity she can, and when she was approached to star in the film, it seemed to be a perfect combination of two of the things closest to her heart.”
Isabelle’s Garden is a marker upon which future social film projects can only be judged. Free from convoluted storylines or secondary distractions, here is a film with a clear message that can speak to the generations. This acclaim is a sentiment felt by many, yet the impact that it brought came as a surprise to some, not least of which was Lauren Palmers.
“We did not know how successful the film would be,” she explains, “Our idea from the beginning was to tell a story about poverty that transcended many audiences.”
She pauses for a moment, reflecting on the content of her masterpiece.
“These,” she stresses, “these are the stories we need to hear today.”
Isabelle’s Garden can be viewed in full at here.