Curiosity forms the cornerstone of Tony Okun’s filmmaking approach. In his first feature-length film, The Park, he unleashes that curiosity to find out how important neighborhood parks are to the people who visit them. The result? A documentary featuring not only lovely scenes of park greenery but also candid interviews with individuals enjoying themselves in the park as well as with a few select park employees. It’s a gentle reminder of how many happy moments take place in urban parks.   

The twenty or so participants seen and heard on screen make up a diverse group, and they seem eager to answer Okun’s questions. Why do they go to the park? Have they seen anything unusual there? What does the park mean to them? And so forth. Although many of the responses are predictable, it’s encouraging to hear them, and these comments evoke memories of one’s own fun -- or even relaxing -- park experiences. Who hasn’t gone to the park to have some space and a quiet place to think? Or to walk one’s dog? Or to play sports? Or to get some exercise?     

Some of the answers given here made me chuckle. For example, in reply to Okun’s “Have you seen anything unusual here in the park?” one member of a group practicing martial arts-type mediation routines says, “You mean besides us?”

Okun, who spent 10 years in Los Angeles working on television and independent film production, sets his documentary in one particular park, but he means it to symbolize urban parks everywhere. Maybe this park isn’t as grand as Balboa Park in San Diego (which I absolutely loved to visit when I lived there) or Central Park in New York City (which I’m ashamed to say I never visited during my one semester at Barnard), but it’s just as important to the surrounding community.

If you live in a neighborhood that’s far away from a park -- like I do now -- watching The Park makes you feel a bit nostalgic. I can’t help thinking about a birthday party that my mother arranged for me in our park when I was a child, or about my granddaughter’s wedding in the park, or the many tennis games I played (and usually lost) there during high school, or the senior “Kids’ Day” picnic held in Pueblo’s Mineral Palace Park.

Okun’s unpretentious little documentary emerges as a tribute to neighborhood parks and to the value of having “an oasis in every city.”

(Released by Bay View Entertainment; not rated by MPAA.)