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THE HIDDEN LIFE OF TREES
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Imagine if mayflies, in addition to their two-day life-span, had money and power and opposable thumbs and whatever else it takes to run the world. That could be the way the trees see humans. Humans plan in decades. Trees plan in centuries. We learn from Jörg Adolph's documentary "The Hidden Life of Trees" that the youth stage of a beach tree can last for 200 years. It is only the comparative slowness of their growth that makes us think of them as not moving. Yet, as you will see in the film, based on the international best-seller by German forester Peter Wohlleben, trees communicate and respond in a manner that can only be called thinking.
Wohlleben wants us to appreciate "how social trees are," with "nutrient exchanges" between trees to help other trees of the same species when they are in need. They are colonies, profoundly connected in the most literal and interdependent sense, "much like ant colonies" and, when left to themselves without human interference, they operate as superorganisms. If we leave them alone and only if we leave them alone, they can thrive more than we have a chance to see. But "they can only get very old in a community." And humans have been breaking up their communities since they discovered that wood could be used for fire and buildings...
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The Hidden Life of Trees movie review (2021) | Roger Ebert
