“A Thousand Pines” - Film Review
The life of a tree planter, on paper, sounds like a dream job for some. You get to work out in nature, you’re paid to help restore nature. In reality, it’s grueling work that is now mostly done by Mexican guest workers who come to the United States on an H2B visa to work for massive forestry companies. A Thousand Pines follows a crew of Oaxacan workers as they travel across the US planting 2,000 pine trees a day,six to seven days per week, for 237 days.
Credit: Noam Osband
A Thousand Pines shows the daily reality of this group of men who have come to the United States in order to better their lives. The $500-600 they can make a week planting trees could take anywhere from two to three months to earn in Mexico. This is not the ideal job for most of these men. They’ve fallen into debt of some kind back home and see this as a way out. Their debt doesn’t come from excessive spending, but from hospital bills from an accident or from their partner’s pregnancy. Many people in the United States aren’t far from that dire financial situation either. One accident or illness is all that’s needed to send people into debt.
The film is almost a vérité piece of documentation. The filmmaking team behind A Thousand Pines has integrated themselves into the lives of this crew. They’re in the same cramped van being transported from location to location. Lingering shots of the men in the motel rooms as they cook their dinners over gas flames in the shower (so as to not set off the smoke alarms) show the isolation and sacrifice they’re enduring for their families. Despite sharing hotel rooms with sometimes ten other people, it’s isolating work. They’re earning money for people they only get to see 128 days out of the year. Some of these men have been working at this job for twenty seasons. The pandemic taught us all a thing or two about isolation, but that’s nothing compared to what is shown in A Thousand Pines.
Credit: Noam Osband
Life, for all of its downs, also has moments of joy that come from unexpected places, and A Thousand Pines makes sure to include those as well. It’s charming to watch the men do a photoshoot of sorts in the snow because it’s the first time they’ve ever seen real snow. One of the men mentions that Home Alone 2: Lost in New York was the most snow he’d ever seen. He couldn’t believe that it happened in real life too. Another scene shows the men watching a grainy soccer game on the television in their motel room. The joy is palpable when the team the men are rooting for scores a goal. They leap out of bed and cheer as though they’re in the stadium.
The crew shown in A Thousand Pines might be strangers when the work season begins, but they become a family of sorts. They’re each other’s co-workers, roommates, medics, and support systems for as long as they’re in the United States. The rest of their lives are on the other end of a crackly cell phone, so they must lean on one another. Their work is underpaid and exhausting, and the only thing that keeps them going is the love of their families. There isn’t a documentary like A Thousand Pines that shows the realities of the lives of these workers, and the message is as urgent as ever.