The Tree of Life
Dir. Terrence Malick, 2011.
Terence Malick's extended meditation on life and nature is expressionistic, oblique, and hard to unravel. The ideas are interesting -- at least, assuming I have fathomed them correctly -- but in the end the film is far less deep than its visuals suggest, and too artsy-fartsy for its own good.
There are no opening credits, just mystical and mystifying images suggesting flames and light, cut with scenes of a middle-class American family from the 1950s. Gradually the story of evolution emerges, big bang to ocean life to dinosaurs, finally manifesting itself in the birth of a baby. This is Jack, later Sean Penn as an adult. Each baby's birth, the film seems to say, is a microcosm of the birth of humankind. Interesting idea, although hardly novel (I think it dates at least to Dr. Spock). What would have been more interesting would be to build upon this -- if one accepts this premise, what does the baby's growth into boyhood, adulthood, and death mean for humankind? Alas, the film doesn't seem to get that far.
What it does get into is the dilemma cited in a direct voiceover at the start of the film. There are two ways to live -- in a state of nature or a state of grace, or words to that effect; which should one choose? Again an interesting idea, assuming "grace" implies some sort of spiritual dimension. Sadly, we are never really given the choice. The film starts exploring the state of nature, as directly observed in Jack as he grows up, and even more directly in beautiful, but ultimately hollow and unsatisfying, nature shots; rivers, trees, grasses and skies.
Brad Pitt as Jack's father perhaps represents "nature", and the poetically lovely Jessica Chastain, "grace". And the two do war, and in another voiceover they are at war in Jack's soul. But the conflict is muted, and the camera returns again and again to what it does best -- loving, lush shots of rivers, trees, grasses and skies.
In the end someone loses his job and self-respect, someone dies, someone comes to some acceptance of the death. But there is no emotional impact for the viewer. Worse, some talented, iconic actors (Pitt, Penn, even Chastain) are wasted, since they are mere algebraic representations of Mr Malick's plan -- this is an auteur film, to its core. Only Jack as an early-teen boy, moody, angry, confused and scared, is truly alive. But he is smothered early and often by the camerawork. In the end its the viewer that loses -- his patience.
What is even more frustrating is that the evolution sequence, which is a good 10 minutes or more, is so cliched. The images are directly drawn from "artist's conception of the Big Bang" and National Geographic specials on the mysteries of space.
This film probably could not have been made without the immense reputation of Mr Malick behind it, and it is indeed important that such films can get made and get wide release. But the film itself doesn't deserve the hushed reverence that has greeted it, and in many ways is a lost opportunity. It is reasonably good, but could have been great.
2.5*
June 2011
Dir. Terrence Malick, 2011.Terence Malick's extended meditation on life and nature is expressionistic, oblique, and hard to unravel. The ideas are interesting -- at least, assuming I have fathomed them correctly -- but in the end the film is far less deep than its visuals suggest, and too artsy-fartsy for its own good.
There are no opening credits, just mystical and mystifying images suggesting flames and light, cut with scenes of a middle-class American family from the 1950s. Gradually the story of evolution emerges, big bang to ocean life to dinosaurs, finally manifesting itself in the birth of a baby. This is Jack, later Sean Penn as an adult. Each baby's birth, the film seems to say, is a microcosm of the birth of humankind. Interesting idea, although hardly novel (I think it dates at least to Dr. Spock). What would have been more interesting would be to build upon this -- if one accepts this premise, what does the baby's growth into boyhood, adulthood, and death mean for humankind? Alas, the film doesn't seem to get that far.
What it does get into is the dilemma cited in a direct voiceover at the start of the film. There are two ways to live -- in a state of nature or a state of grace, or words to that effect; which should one choose? Again an interesting idea, assuming "grace" implies some sort of spiritual dimension. Sadly, we are never really given the choice. The film starts exploring the state of nature, as directly observed in Jack as he grows up, and even more directly in beautiful, but ultimately hollow and unsatisfying, nature shots; rivers, trees, grasses and skies.
Brad Pitt as Jack's father perhaps represents "nature", and the poetically lovely Jessica Chastain, "grace". And the two do war, and in another voiceover they are at war in Jack's soul. But the conflict is muted, and the camera returns again and again to what it does best -- loving, lush shots of rivers, trees, grasses and skies. In the end someone loses his job and self-respect, someone dies, someone comes to some acceptance of the death. But there is no emotional impact for the viewer. Worse, some talented, iconic actors (Pitt, Penn, even Chastain) are wasted, since they are mere algebraic representations of Mr Malick's plan -- this is an auteur film, to its core. Only Jack as an early-teen boy, moody, angry, confused and scared, is truly alive. But he is smothered early and often by the camerawork. In the end its the viewer that loses -- his patience.
What is even more frustrating is that the evolution sequence, which is a good 10 minutes or more, is so cliched. The images are directly drawn from "artist's conception of the Big Bang" and National Geographic specials on the mysteries of space.
This film probably could not have been made without the immense reputation of Mr Malick behind it, and it is indeed important that such films can get made and get wide release. But the film itself doesn't deserve the hushed reverence that has greeted it, and in many ways is a lost opportunity. It is reasonably good, but could have been great.
2.5*
June 2011
