Country:
USA
Recognizable Faces:
Brad Pitt
Sean Penn
Jessica Chastain
Directed By:
Terence Malick
The movies of Terence Malick are a reassuring thing for arthouse films enthusiasts. In a demented Hollywood system, he's still kicking it old school, a sweet reminiscence of a time when "author cinema" was a wanted commodity. He's not easy though, while his movies are pure eye candy, they lend to use the concepts of time and length to their full extent in creating some new ways to tell things. Malick said in interview that THE TREE OF LIFE was the movie he wanted to make for a long time, so I was a little bit worried he would make things overly complicated. This is the way things goes sometimes when you want to talk about some subjects too hard. But Malick being a great (and more important EXPERIENCED) director, he manages to keep it arthouse, intelligible and non-pedantic for about most of the movie. THE TREE OF LIFE dips its toes in self-indulgence, but remains an intelligible and interesting reflection about the meaning of life.
You have to have a stomach for arthouse if you want to sit through this, because like most Terence Malick movies before, it's pretty long and the structure is more experimental than usual. Jack O'Brien (Penn) seems to be very successful. He wears suits and works in a skyscraper buildings. But Jack looks like a lost soul, he's haunted by images of his childhood and by the struggle he's had with his faith. THE TREE OF LIFE explain his complex relationship to his father, a strong and rigid man who was a Godlike figure in his own house. Young Jack (Hunter McCracken) is witnessing the acts of God and the acts of his father and tries to figure out his places in the greater portrait. THE TREE OF LIFE is that, plus about thirty of forty minutes worth of footage about the creation of the universe. Good times.
I think I get it. Really, most of the viewers were befuddled by Terence Malick's latest but I think I understand what he was trying to say. You are as much a part of the universe as the universe is a part of you. Everything, every beginning, every cataclysm, every end, ends with you. It's a very powerful feeling. With that in mind, the narrator Jack is reflecting on his relationship to his creators. His tough dad and the evanescent dream that was his mom. The way of nature and the way of grace, as he exposed it so well. The dialog is scarce and most times there's an off-screen voice narrating. It's done in Malick's trademark poetic way, but he tends to get overboard with the spiritual diatribe. Some of Malick's writing is touching, some sound like desperate attempts to touch something meaningful through language.
I'm sure this movie is going to grow on me with time. I've seen enough in my life to recognize that Malick is somewhere further than me in life and I'm sure I'll get a completely different meaning out of this by the time I'm forty. Still, I thought it was beautiful, but JUST a little bit overdone. Those stills of a cavern that looked like a carved up chocolate brick, what were they supposed to represent? The inmost cave? Malick knows better than to use such clichés, even in his creative approach. Those "beach scenes" (I don't want to spoil their nature, they are important to the movie) are a weird way to give closure to his character and I think reflect troubles he had to find a suitable conclusion. I loved THE TREE OF LIFE, thought it was very ambitious and a visually beautiful without relinquishing the narrative. Malick finds the subtle little ways to make it work and blend his craft seamlessly into his story. I wasn't gung-ho over it like I was over THE THIN RED LINE, I thought it was confused at times, but overall it's another solid movie by Terence Malick
SCORE: 82%
