Thirty years ago or so, British arborist Thomas Pakenham had an unlikely bestseller with “Meetings With Remarkable Trees,” a lavish, photographically illustrated doorstop that, for a time, seemed to adorn at least every other coffee table in sight. The book, a valentine to the largest and most enduring plants on our planet, eschewed standard botanical theory, instead dividing the world’s trees into five more fanciful categories: natives, travelers, shrines, fantasies, survivors. Perhaps Hungarian director Ildikó Enyedi had a copy. The sprawling, stately and indeed remarkable Gingko biloba that binds the multiple narratives of her marvelous new film “Silent Friend” meets all those descriptions at one point or another.
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