When Jules Dervaes killed off the lawn of his prim Pasadena bungalow in the late '80s to start a vegetable garden, his neighbors thought him odd. Twenty-plus years later, now that he and his three grown children reap 6,000 pounds of organic vegetables a year from their one-fifth-acre property, he's become a visionary among the urban homesteading movement. Robert McFalls' lush documentary--Southern California's Tuscan sun drenches everything in optimistic, golden hues--follows Dervaes' mission to free his family from the "cookie-cutter" life: They have solar panels, a small biodiesel refinery, and tools they've purchased from an Amish catalog. They buy food they can't grow from a co-op. The joy of their work beams from their faces. But their lives aren't without difficulty: they have no insurance, wrangle over money constantly, and complain about monotony--seasonal eating means eating the same thing every day. McFalls doesn't probe why Dervaes' wife left him early on, but the family's intense, unconventional dedication to their father's vision gives viewers a pretty good idea.
(Tim Hill)
