Based on German conservationist and author Peter Wohlleben’s 2015 bestselling book of the same title, the slow-paced but info-packed “The Hidden Life of Trees” very quickly makes one thing abundantly clear: J.R.R. Tolkien got it right. Trees are basically Ents.
Wohlleben himself is the main subject of the film. Presenting us with his biological, ecological, and academic expertise that’s grounded in a deep, Teutonic matter-of-factness, former forester Wohlleben explains that trees are sentient beings. They talk to each other, share nutrients through their intertwined canopies and root systems, have complicated social networks, take care of and feed their kids (seedlings and infant trees) with liquid sugar, and outwit pesky insect infestations by, for example, timing their blossoming to produce bumper crops that will outstrip the local fauna’s ability to gobble up all their seeds.
Some species can protect themselves from burrowing insects; most trees use fungi as a “wood-wide web”—basically an Ent-Internet. Trees feel pain from saw cuts and insect mandibles, but can heal themselves over time—sloooowly.
All this reminded me of the American gypsy moth infestation of the mid-1970s, where mass human hysteria set in due to the hordes of crawly, web-spinning caterpillars everywhere, with people thinking that their forests and well-appointed backyards were history. Scientists, however, revealed that trees had responded by simply putting out more tannic acid in their leaves the next summer, causing the moth-mischief to implode.
All this tree culture, naturally, takes centuries—millennia even—to establish, but trees in the past had lots of time to do their thing. Along came humans, who eventually started using the world’s wood for heating homes, fires for cooking, and so on—sort of like another critter infestation. Except humans are the world’s most effective, unstoppable predatory species in every regard and the trees don’t stand a chance.
This hits home when we witness a “tree feller” in action—those mechanized megasaws on the end of backhoe-type arms that cut down, strip, and section trees into logs with an efficiency that turns the stomach in a similar fashion to witnessing the efficient machines utilized in livestock slaughterhouses. Sawdust is easier to deal with than blood, but there’s something wanton, revolting, and horrendously disrespectful in the split-second destruction of a life-form that stood and witnessed life around it for centuries.
Woodlore
The directors follow Wohlleben around, filming him lecturing to students of conservation, being a television guest, and leading a show-and-tell nature walk with a Korean group. He explains in detail why the flora monoculture foisted by logging plantations upon forest areas is unhealthy, and why clear-cutting destroys the potential of young trees: They start growing too fast, and a healthy tree is a slow-growing tree.
We get to see “Old Tjikko,” at almost 10,000 years—the world’s oldest tree. Old Tjikko stands alone in a field in Sweden, surrounded by an unseen, massive root system. It’s been around since the Ice Age. It’s seen Vikings, maybe even saw the Norse all-father god Odin ride his eight-legged steed across the night sky. It’s seen blood and wars and the rise and fall of civilizations. Tolkien was probably aware of its existence. Maybe it’s the inspiration for Treebeard.
The Trees Go—We Go
There are photos of smoke and flames, and statistics about British Columbia’s wildfires. The magnitude of the damage is staggering. While the concept of climate crisis is still controversial, our need to preserve old and slow-growth forests is not.The film is an uncritical adaptation of Wohlleben’s book and doesn’t deal with controversy over his approach, which some biologists feel is a bit woo-woo and anthropomorphizes the science. However, this criticism is just a prolonged state of ostrich-head-in-the-sand obstinance. Rigorous scientific research by top-notch botanists has been going on for decades and has scientifically proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, with all the required science boxes ticked, that plants are sentient beings with sensory organs and emotions.
Overall, while the pacing is sometimes not ideal in terms of allowing for the absorption of large amounts of information by viewers (the result of which is that it’s easy for some facts to slip by), if you’re a “Lord of the Rings” fan, you might enjoy this movie. It will enhance your appreciation of the scene where, during the Ent gathering, Merry is pulling his hobbit hair out with impatience. After waiting all day long, he thinks that the Ents have finally come up with a plan of action to deal with Saruman’s treachery, but Treebeard tells him that the Ents have only just finished saying “good morning.”
Trees are slooooooow, but very, very wise. Just as Ents are tree shepherds, humans, in their finest role and which has been demonstrated ad infinitum by “primitive” cultures the world over, are earth stewards. We need to get back to that, and quickly.
