In late February of 2005, I found myself walking along a path in Central Park when, at dusk, a light snow began to fall. As the snow blanketed the landscape, it sucked up the sounds of the city, leaving only one thing audible: the sound of the saffron curtains over our heads lazily flapping in the breeze. Suddenly, Christo and Jeanne-Claude's The Gates stood out in brilliant contrast to the ear just as they popped from the visual landscape against the newly white backdrop. Two years on, Albert Maysles and Antonio Ferrera’s documentary The Gates transported me back to that evening, accomplishing the difficult task of recreating in pictures a work of art best experienced first hand.

Albert Maysles and his now deceased brother David had a long-standing relationship with Christo and Jeanne-Claude, which resulted in five previous films on the enigmatic pair and their larger than life environmental pieces. In 1979, when the artists first brought their idea for a temporary installation in Central Park to the city of New York, they brought the Maysles along with them. The Gates opens with a brief introduction in the present, and then carries us back to those first days of meetings with lawyers, parks commissioners, neighborhood groups, and endless parades of committee meetings. Their idea dies a slow and painful death, as various figures raise objection after objection. As it becomes clear that the circus of sour faced public officials isn't going to let the pair near the park with so much as a swatch of fabric, Christo is reduced to sitting lonely and crumpled in a corner while public servants rip his idea to shreds.

Fast forward twenty-odd years and enter Michael Bloomsberg. The new mayor sets the project back in motion, stating that he can't understand why anyone ever objected to The Gates in the first place. The artists get to work raising the money, at a price tag now four times what it was originally. But as always, they accept no money from sponsors or the city, financing it entirely on their own. The filmmakers highlight this fact, alongside the inability of many people to understand why or how the artists could manage it, assuming that somehow the taxpayers are going to get stuck with some of the bill.

The film's editing is transparent in its objective: to show how opposition and rancor turn to smiles and tranquility in the face of Christo and Jeanne-Claude's artistic vision. Even as they document the construction of The Gates throughout the park, grumpy life-long New Yorkers all but spit on the project, and only the volunteers and blue collar workers doing the work seem to have much in the way of faith. But on the day of the opening, as thousands of curtains unroll like slow moving dominos, suddenly the only people with screen-time are the beatific faces, mouths slightly ajar in wonderment as they experience the art. Massive crowds wander meditatively through The Gates, children and adults alike laugh and smile, a young man makes up an elaborate and playful myth explaining their genesis to interested listeners. The film itself moves from the Maysles' and Ferrera's fly-on-the-wall documentation of the process to a simple celebration of the art itself.

Much of the last third or more of the film is wordless, simple and elegant high definition shots of Central Park with a thread of bright color passing through it, close-ups of the rippling fabric, The Gates in rain and snow and sun. Jeanne-Claude and Christo play the parts of both elated children and proud parents, clearly enjoying their creation just as much as everyone else in the park for those two weeks. The film doesn't hide, nor does it apologize for, its disappointment in those who opposed the project. But in the end, all the arguments and fights are simply forgotten, lost in the simple and surprising beauty that lived in the park that February, so perfectly documented here.

Photo of a preparatory study for The Gates by Christo from the Maysles Films website.