Reflective Encounters

“What is it to be “off” or “out of your tree”? These two phrases come to mind when contemplating Man or Tree by Varun Raman and Tom Hancock. This surreal comedy takes us on the drug-fuelled existential crisis of a person, or a tree, or a person who has turned into a tree, or a tree that hasn’t had any drugs but is hallucinating due to a disease… Either way, there is definitely a crisis going on, and there is a tree on our screens.

Shot entirely outdoors with trees and landscapes as our subjects, this film’s narrator is as confused and alarmed as we are as he tries to figure out what is going on. In place of human reaction shots, we see a tree-trunk with what looks to be a face of surprise etched into it. Alongside that, warped roots and bark, spinning images, and shots overlaid atop of each other, delving fully into delusion. Perhaps it’s also the angry Scots accent, but in the mashing together of elegantly simple cinematic language and surreal delusions, one senses a linkage to the warped ramblings of Glaswegian comic Limmy, and his lockdown sketch show, Limmy’s Homemade Show (2020).”

— Alice Shone