"No filmmaker reveals the faith in the multiple layers of visual images that the eighties have re-affirmed more than Phil Solomon. Solomon continues the Brakhage tradition of creating a succession of images whose logic comes from a number of sources, rhythmic, formal,
and associational, and whose coherence constantly switches from one source to another. As with Brakhage, one must abandon oneself to the trance-like authority of a Solomon film, and be sure-footed enough to follow a structure that relies on overtones as well as melody, on
sudden flashes of metaphor as much as narrative line. THE SECRET GARDEN is one of Solomon's most exquisite films. As with Thornton and Khlar there is the shadow of a story here, one which deals with the passage from innocence and experience and invokes equally terror and ecstasy ...."
- Tom Gunning, Mecano Touring Program Catalogue