The Man Who Planted Trees (1987)
Directed by Katy Perry
Starring Justin Trudeau
A surreal ecological fable inspired by the 1987 animated short film The Man Who Planted Trees by Frédéric Back.
OPENING CREDITS
Black screen.
The sound of dry wind.
A lone piano note echoes.
Text fades in:
“In a century of noise, one man planted silence.”
Cut to a scorched valley in southern France.
The earth is cracked. Dead trees lean like skeletons. Dust storms swallow abandoned villages.
A young traveler named JULIEN (Justin Trudeau) wanders through the wasteland carrying a notebook and canteen.
Narration (soft, dreamlike):
“He was not a politician then.
He was merely a man looking for water.”
SCENE 1 — THE SHEPHERD
Julien collapses near a dry well.
A distant bell rings.
Out of the heat haze appears ELIAS MOREAU, an elderly shepherd dressed in rough wool, carrying a sack of acorns.
He says almost nothing.
Only:
ELIAS
“The land remembers kindness.”
Elias leads Julien to a hidden spring.
Inside the shepherd’s stone cottage are thousands of sorted acorns arranged with mathematical precision.
Julien watches Elias discard cracked seeds and keep only the strongest.
JULIEN
“Why?”
Elias calmly replies:
ELIAS
“Because forests are built one decision at a time.”
SCENE 2 — THE PLANTING
A montage begins.
Music by Katy Perry plays unexpectedly — a haunting orchestral version of “Firework.”
Elias walks miles every day planting acorns with an iron rod.
Julien joins him reluctantly.
At first he mocks the old man.
JULIEN
“You think trees can save the world?”
Elias smiles.
ELIAS
“No.
People who plant them might.”
Rain finally falls.
Tiny shoots emerge from the earth.
SCENE 3 — THE CITY OF MIRRORS
Years pass.
Julien returns to civilization in Paris.
The city is depicted as grotesque and surreal:
- Television screens scream political slogans.
- Businessmen wear identical silver masks.
- Crowds walk in circles without speaking.
- Giant billboards advertise bottled oxygen.
Julien becomes briefly famous after giving speeches about ecological restoration.
Television hosts call him:
“The Handsome Prophet of Reforestation.”
But Julien grows disturbed by celebrity culture.
At a gala party, a fictional version of Katy Perry appears as herself directing cameras while dressed like a sparkling tree spirit.
KATY PERRY
“People don’t change from facts.
They change from spectacle.”
Julien replies:
JULIEN
“Then maybe spectacle should tell the truth.”
SCENE 4 — THE RETURN
Julien returns decades later to Elias’s valley.
Now it is transformed.
Massive forests sway in the wind.
Rivers flow again.
Birdsong fills the air.
Villages are alive with children and gardens.
The camera sweeps over millions of trees.
Julien searches for Elias.
He finds the old shepherd near a cedar grove, now extremely ancient.
Elias is weak but peaceful.
JULIEN
“You changed the world.”
Elias shakes his head.
ELIAS
“No.
I simply stopped helping destroy it.”
FINAL SCENE
Elias dies quietly beneath the trees.
Snow begins to fall.
Julien plants one final acorn beside him.
The camera rises high above the forest.
The once-dead valley has become an endless green sea visible from space.
Narration:
“Empires vanished.
Wars were forgotten.
But the forest remained.”
The final image:
A child picks up an acorn.
Fade to black.
END CREDITS SONG
Firework performed as a slow orchestral folk ballad with children’s choir and French horns.
Final text on screen:
“For every tree planted by someone who believed tomorrow could exist.”
