I'm not sure I would call this a documentary

If this is a documentary than so is Close-Up (1990). The documentary aspect of it is just a background to the main theme, which is a meditation on life, time, old age, death, art and our place in all of it. The tree can be seen as the tree of life but also as our highest goals, either artistic or just as human beings, something we strife for but can never capture. It slips from our grasps the moments we try to capture it, as symbolized by the lines on the fruits on the tree.

In a way one can say that it is a depressing message but keep in mind, the painter loved standing close to the tree and he enjoyed trying to capture it. Life is not getting what you strife for, but rather the strife it self.

Brilliant film from Víctor Erice, the director of two other masterpieces; The Spirit of the Beehive (1973) and El Sur (1983).

- No animal was hurt during the making of this burger -