This legendary head-trip of a documentary, based on the controversial book by Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird, features all kinds of wild, largely unsupported claims about the way plants and fungi interact with and exist in the world. Best known (and rightfully so) for its spectacular time-lapse photography and funky, psychedelic score by Stevie Wonder, THE SECRET LIFE OF PLANTS has recently been digitally restored and can finally been seen properly for the first time in decades.

“Rather than attempt to carry on with [Songs in the] Key of Life’s trajectory and his own heritage…Wonder literally branched out, reaching upward towards an undetermined new destination, exploring intuitively and fearlessly in a manner that few artists have ever managed to do in the history of pop music.” —Andy Beta, Pitchfork

“Wonder’s technical mastery — he produced the [double-LP] and plays almost every instrument — works well in the service of the all-suggestive mysticism at the center of both the film’s subject (plants’ secret lives as a key to human knowledge) and his own career.” —Ken Tucker, Rolling Stone (Jan 24, 1980)

Please Note: All in-person screenings at the Brattle now require proof of vaccination or a negative Covid-19 test (within 72-hours).