I watched this on - must've been Youtube - about a decade ago. It was a BRILLIANT film, started off as a sly costume/period comedy but grew very strange and picturesque, with some dreamlike elements. In the 18th-ish century, a young, ambitious landscape designer arrives, with an assistant in tow, at a rich family house that's surrounded by overgrown wilderness. There's a daughter, who has a special affinity with a water body (pond? stream? can't recall) hidden in these woods. The father is obsessed with getting one of those Versailles-style formal gardens, whatever the cost. The architect/garden planner and servant/assistant are lying about being Scottish and working in England, because that's where the most celebrated such artists come from.
The film was not famous or even big-budget, I'm sure of that. Perfect historical piece though, the mansion, gardens, costumes, the lot. Typical English semi-art fare, obscure, but with great script, acting and setting. It's nagging at me that there were a couple of actors in in who later became big stars, but I can't for the life of me remember who.
EDIT: It is NOT 'A Little Chaos' I'm thinking of, which is the only film my hundreds of Google attempts throw up.
That's what wikipedia seems to be alluding to.
But this is not even mentioned once in this video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6dEmJOnJvI&t=1986s
It seems ridiculous to me that the English needed China to introduce them to the concept of natural gardens or integrating the landscape but that's what wikipedia says.
What is the truth?
That's what wikipedia seems to be alluding to.
But this is not even mentioned once in this video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6dEmJOnJvI&t=1986s
It seems ridiculous to me that the English needed China to introduce them to the concept of natural gardens or integrating the landscape but that's what wikipedia says.
What is the truth?
