Some will find Gilmour’s newest work, The Limits of Lawncare, a tedious, pompous waste of 149 minutes. But those with an MFA in Cinema Studies, or an MS in Horticulture, will find much to appreciate.

Like his seminal earlier works, Stranger Than Irrigation and Dead Grass, Gilmour’s latest evinces a total disregard for narrative drive, emotional impact, and any reason to exist. It’s essentially a “story” of an enigmatic lawn-watering agent, played with admirable blankness by Rotor Sprinkler, who has a series of repetitive, meaningless encounters with a cast of anonymous blades of grass.

The slow, circular way the film unfolds mirrors perfectly the way Rotor Sprinkler moves through his cryptic mission. While Sprinkler has shown he can handle pressures up to 150psi, the crawling pace of The Limits of Lawncare showcases his facility for more soporific 60psi work to impressively narcotizing effect.

For film geniuses like me, half of the pleasure comes in spotting Gilmour’s characteristic references to past masters like Hitchcock, Godard, and Zoysia, including a startling cameo by a metal spike. But ultimately, The Limits of Lawncare is an exercise in style, as Gilmour brings his vision to bear on a 4000-square foot patch of lawn. Asking “what’s the point?” misses the point. All you can do with The Limits of Lawncare is sit back and watch the grass grow.

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