"The Biggest Little Farm" Movie Review
Have you ever had a dream you thought was unattainable? Something you wanted so badly that seemed too hard, or too far away to reach?
John Chester and his wife Molly Chester shared a dream as a couple in the city of Los Angeles, California. John was a filmmaker, and Molly was a chef, particularly fond of healthy and organic foods. They had a dream to own a huge farm with every fruit, vegetable, and animal there ever was. Molly wanted to have every ingredient she could ever want to cook with in her own backyard.
The documentary, The Biggest Little Farm does an amazing job of capturing the eight years of struggles it took to achieve the Chester’s dream. Usually I'm not one to watch something about agriculture, and truthfully it was our family movie-night pick, but I'm so glad I got to watch it. To be frank, at first I thought it would be boring and just a bunch of agriculture facts with some pretty pictures. What I got from it was completely the opposite. You get to follow along as issues arise. They face everything from natural disasters threatening the land to the sometimes unfortunate food chain, to trying to get things done while still respecting the land and its natural ecosystems. The filming itself was gorgeous, and the light always seemed to be perfect at every shot. The film was actually produced, directed, and filmed all by John Chester. He filmed the whole journey from the start.After five years, he knew he would have to make a film.
At the start of the film, this dream farm seemed impossible; it was too hard and too expensive.Until one day, when John met Todd. Todd was a dog that John had come across while filming the story of a woman who hoarded dogs. There were far too many dogs to save, and most would have to be euthanized. When John saw Todd, he saw something special in his eyes. He knew that this shy and beautiful dog was meant to be his. He called his wife right away, and after she agreed, John brought Todd home. Bringing Todd home to a cramped LA apartment had its challenges. Since Todd had gone through so much in the past, he had really bad separation anxiety. Whenever John and Molly would leave the apartment, he would bark and howl for hours disturbing all the tenants. Eventually they got a call from the landlord who said they needed to get rid of the dog. John and Molly knew they couldn't give up on Todd, they made Todd a promise that they would be his forever home. This is when John and Molly’s dream started to become a reality.
The next few months they raised a ton of money, and finally had enough to start searching for land. They found around 200 acres outside of LA called Apricot Lane Farms. One initial problem was that neither John or Molly had any farming experience and would need lots of help. That's when they met a man named Alan York who would help them throughout much of their journey. Their major goal with the farm was to employ “traditional farming” and biodynamic farming approaches, which Alan knew all about. The first problem they encountered was that the land they had purchased was infertile. While this alone was a big enough problem, this was just the first issue, there were hundreds more to follow.
My favorite storyline was that of Emma the pig. She was their first pig on the farm, and ended up giving birth to an unusually large liter of seventeen piglets. She got really sick after giving birth, and they aren’t sure that she is going to make it. Emma is just one among the many cute animals who alone make the movie worth watching.
When I finished the movie, I started to wonder why “The Biggest Little Farm” was it’s title. I got to thinking about the reasoning behind the title, and soon realized its underlying meaning. Although it's just one little farm somewhere in California, it's so much more than that. This one little farm represents this much larger idea of how just a small group of people can make such a difference in their environment. This farm started off as a dream and became so much more than what anyone originally imagined. It just goes to show that even the smallest of ideas can turn into something so much bigger than anyone thought possible. I also learned that sometimes my parents pick decent movies for family movie night.