A Man Named Pearl (2007)

A Man Named Pearl is a weedy title for a nicely planted documentary about Pearl Fryar, a self-taught topiary artist in rural Bishopville, S.C. Stung years ago by a white home owner's comment that ''black people don't keep up their yards,'' Fryar turned his own three acres into a fantasyland of inspired abstract shapes. The film is as thoughtfully free-form as the living sculptures, meandering from meditations on plants to the elements of community. B+