The Secret Garden: A World as Character Study

The Secret Garden (1993), follows the protagonist, Mary (Kate Maberly), as she moves to her uncle’s isolated country manor after the sudden death of her parents. There she discovers an abandoned garden— a character in of itself— and the colourful inhabitants of the estate. Through nurturing the garden, Mary and her friends learn about the values of friendship and believing in yourself. It’s a heartwarming story about grief and growth, set amidst beautiful, pastoral scenery. It’s nice. But the first time I watched it, it felt somewhat undefined. I couldn’t quite grasp exactly what it was trying to be. Though the costumes, sets and characters felt historically accurate and carefully considered, it wasn’t fully committed to being a period film. Similarly, though there were hints of magic, it wasn’t overtly fantastical. And while the main characters were all children, it didn’t feel like a kid's film either. In fact, it took itself very seriously, forgoing a distinct 3-act structure to focus on a more gradual plot progression that depicted everyday life and realistic development.

        But on the second watch, it clicked. To try to place it into a mold and judge it strictly by its genre conventions is beside the point and a disservice to the rich world that director Agnieszka Holland has painstakingly crafted. The world of the film is not just the setting, it’s not the manor or even the titular garden. The world of the film is as important as its character because it is Mary. It is seen not only through Mary’s eyes and her perspective, but tracks, matches, and externalises her personal development as the story progresses.

        One of the more overt ways the film establishes worldview from Mary’s point of view is through shot composition and framing. Because of the way Mary herself, and the camera, are positioned throughout the film, we as the audience are visually clued into both her emotional state and how she perceives the environment around her. Many of the shots at the beginning of the film are designed to emphasise the loneliness and isolation Mary is experiencing, either from the neglect of her parents or her sudden displacement from home. In the very first scene in which the audience is introduced to Mary, she is captured in a long shot while being dressed by two attendants. Her expression, body language and the colour scheme of the scene suggest despondency, though her physical position and framing in the room also pull a lot of weight. In the corner of a room that is inexplicably barren sans one chair, Mary is standing with her back to the wall, making her the focus of the shot but also setting up how alone and trapped she feels in this period of her life.

        Similarly, after Mary is orphaned and sent to England, the shot of her waiting on the docks for Mrs. Medlock (Maggie Smith) also very starkly emphasises her loneliness and neglect. Shown in another wide shot, Mary sits curled into herself—barely noticeable amongst her luggage— in the corner of the frame. As one of the only people in frame, she is made to look incredibly small against the dark and empty port. Mary’s smallness is continually emphasised throughout the early scenes of the film. In multiple scenes when she is talking to adults, she is seen in medium or close shots, the camera looking down over the adult's shoulder, making her appear shorter than she actually is. Additionally, once Mary arrives at her uncle’s manor, Holland continues to manipulate the shots and sets with this theme in mind. We see Mary absolutely dwarfed against her king-sized four-poster bed (a miniature set of stairs leading up to it for her), and once again confined to corners as Martha (Laura Crossley) dresses her. But perhaps most indicative of this perspective, are the scenes in which Mary wonders the halls, made minuscule by her central framing under the high ceilings and wide corridors, exaggerated further by one particular high angled overhead shot.

        All of these choices give the audience a sense of perspective on how out-of-depth Mary feels in these environments. However, we are also treated to literal shots from Mary’s perspective, as Holland constructs multiple shots from Mary’s eye level. In this way, we are presented with the gloomy view from Mary’s room of the towering estate, the sudden flight of the pigeon in the abandoned alcove, spooked by Mary’s exploration, and the frantic maids rushing down the dark stairwell below her, among others.  The selectivity of Holland's framing choices and camera work all suggest a deep level of intentional consideration in the perspective they portray, affirming V.F. Perkins’s claim that: “The image is displayed not only to relay information but to claim that it matters and to guide us toward the ways in which it matters”.

        Another carefully coordinated aspect of worldhood in The Secret Garden is the use of colour and costume to subtly denote Mary’s emotional state and growth throughout the film. Similar to the framing devices of the early scenes, Holland has chosen a monochromatic palette that thematically highlights Mary’s neglect, loneliness and grief— setting up an aesthetic point of comparison for the audience to track, as Mary and her garden grow throughout the film. In the aforementioned opening scene, Mary is seen dressed in and surrounded by lots of low contrast off-white colours, looking completely miserable and plain, in stark contrast to her absent, socialite parents, who are surrounded by colour and revelry.  Unwanted Mary is forced to hide in the cream bedroom, bereft of colour, toying sadly with her mother's porcelain elephant while an extravagant party rages on next door, completely saturated in vibrant red.

        Upon losing her parents and coming to England, Mary’s attire and world take on a darker palette, a mix of black scenic shots and dress, and grey filter, that create a gloomy atmosphere fitting her mourning period and uncertainty in her new home. As opposed to the distinct contrast of the first colour palettes, these darker motifs are more seamlessly built into the world/setting, as Mary’s ship arrives in England in the dead of night, the wide shot of the ship a barely visible blip against the night sky and black sea. Dressed in her black frock (traditional mourning dress), Mary, too, is almost obscured amidst the poorly lit port as she waits for Mrs. Medlock. The manor itself receives a similar monochromatic treatment, seen first blending into the grey sky and shrouded in fog, it presents an unwelcoming first impression. Taking in all the gothic manor’s dark engraved woodwork and the washed-out grey-white walls, Mary makes an accurate assessment when she says: “The house seemed dead”.

        But as the film, and indeed Mary’s personal development progresses more dynamic use of colour slowly enters the world. Most interesting is the use of warm colours to signify a transitional period in Mary’s life. Though it’s certainly possible that this was unintentional I couldn't help but notice such recurring motifs, present in the red hat that Martha gives to Mary the first day she is allowed to explore the estate, the tuft of feathers on the bird that leads Mary to the secret garden, and the lone red reeds that are some of the only pops of colour in the dead garden during winter. Indeed, details such as these seem to me an example of “weighting”, in which a film may draw the viewer’s eye to elements that “may ‘normally’ be imperceptible” but takes on a deeper meaning within the context of the film, “foregrounding” important themes or events— in this case, through the contrast presented to us at the beginning of the film, and the story beats associated with their appearances.

         In a more obvious example, we see the world literally bloom around Mary— green grass and foliage, a rainbow of flowers—as she makes friends and becomes happier, and more childlike. Of course, the “in-world” (in the sense of time/setting) reason for this is because it’s spring. However, it’s not coincidental that this coincides with Mary finally experiencing joy and companionship with the other lonely children of the estate. In fact, we see this reflected once again in her wardrobe, which goes from all black, to some pops of colour, to a mix of white (no longer washed out, but fresh and bright in the proper lighting) and lilac dresses.

        All in all, this carefully constructed combination of framing and aesthetics goes a long way in allowing the audience a clear insight into Mary’s world and feelings, positioning us to sympathize with her (despite her initial bratty characterisation) and view the world with her childlike perspective. In taking in the dark and looming halls of the manor through Mary’s eyes, I too questioned if the house was haunted or hid sinister secrets. And in watching her amidst the beautiful garden that bloomed because of and with her, I wondered if there was something magic about it after all. Through subtly weaving Mary’s emotional motifs into the setting, traditions and attire of the time, Holland has created not only a rich world and compelling character study but a sterling ode to visual storytelling. 

“To be in a world is to know the partiality of knowledge and the boundedness of vision—to be aware that there is always a bigger picture. To observe a world humanly is to do so from a viewpoint, with angles of vision and points of focus whose selectivity is inflected by the seeing mind."

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Work Cited

Perkins, V.F. "WHERE IS THE WORLD? The Horizon Of Events In Movie Fiction". In V. F. Perkins On Movies: Collected Shorter Film Criticism, 275-276. Douglas Pye and George M. Wilson, 1st ed. Reprint, Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2021.

Yacavone, Daniel. Film Worlds: A Philosophical Aesthetics of Cinema, 94. New York: Columbia University Press, 2014.