An allotment in fast motion

Text: an original contemporary documentary-review-style practice extract.

In the documentary, the allotment’s beans climbed their supports in less than a minute. Clouds hurried overhead; shadows ran backwards across the soil. The film gave growth a speed at which nobody in the garden could have lived. I watched with the satisfying feeling that waiting had been dealt with.

Then the sequence changed to an ordinary afternoon. A gardener picked damaged leaves from a plant while another searched for a missing label. Their work looked slow after the rushing sky. The editor left the camera running as a watering can was filled. Those uncompressed seconds began to feel almost extravagant, though they belonged to the same weeks we had just crossed so easily.

The film returned to fast motion later, and I still enjoyed it. But the ordinary interval had supplied a scale against which its efficiency could be understood. A season could be made visible quickly without having been lived quickly. The most revealing cut was the one that allowed a filling can to take its actual time.

Analyse how the writer uses language and structure to interest and engage the reader.

In your answer, consider:

• language features and techniques
• structural techniques
• the effect on the reader.

Support your views with detailed reference to the extract.