"The Tree of Life"

The Tree of Life - Written and directed by Terrence Malick, starring Brad Pitt, Sean Penn, and Jessica Chastain - Rated PG-13

A few years ago I would have given this film a "Bruce Banner's Dad," but now it gets a "Vader."  I have no explanation.

Terrence Malick. That name is very divisive in the cinematic world. Some people are transfixed by his melodic films, which almost always focus on nature and feature whispered, poetic narration. Others find him terribly pretentious to the point that no beauty on screen can make up for it. Oddly enough, I fit into both camps. You can read my full transformation here, but to keep it short, I started off absolutely hating all of Malick’s work and I now consider him one of my favorite filmmakers. The Tree of Life fits right into Malick’s canon so it is definitely a “love it or hate it” movie. I loved it.

The Tree of Life is certainly Malick’s most difficult film. It is very disjointed and lacks any semblance of a normal narrative structure. Anyone watching just to see Brad Pitt or Sean Penn’s latest will likely turn it off in less than an hour. Those who go in knowing it is Malick are much more likely to enjoy it, though that isn’t a guarantee. While the film isn’t told in a typical, straightforward way, it is still quite easy to pick up on the themes of the film. (Stop reading if you want to know absolutely nothing about the plot of this film, but, to be honest, who is reading this that hasn’t watched the film?) With a title like The Tree of Life, this film obviously deals with life and death, but also with the importance of one’s childhood. One (me, for example) could claim that Malick is comparing childhood in 1950s Texas with the birth of the universe. That’s where some could start to scoff and the word “pretentious” might show up. It’s hard to argue with anyone who calls this film pretentious because…it really is. Since the childhood moments in Texas supposedly mirror Malick’s own childhood it’s easy to condemn the film as pompous when twenty minutes or so into an autobiographical childhood film we are shown the birth of our universe.

Of course, this is just my interpretation and everyone is free to take from this film what they will. I found the film pretentious. I find most of Malick’s films pretentious, but I love them anyway, mainly because Malick makes absolutely beautiful films and this may be his most beautiful yet. The scenes detailing the origin of the universe and planet Earth are obviously the standout scenes especially since Malick, much like Darren Aronofsky did with The Fountain, used practical effects for most of these scenes. The violence of nature and creation has never looked better. But the scenes that take place in modern world are just as beautiful. The modern scenes have that Malick style, as the camera meanders around and with the characters, but what makes this film stand out is Malick’s ability to find beauty in nature and civilization. The present day scenes with Sean Penn are just as, if not more, impressive than the more natural shots during Brad Pitt’s segments.

The Tree of Life is beautiful not just visually, but atmospherically. At times, you may feel like you’re in the middle of a strange dream. After watching the film it can feel like you’ve just woken up and can’t quite put your finger on what the dream was about, you just know you want to go back to it. The disjointed nature of the film adds to the dream-like quality and yes, there are also elements and images that make no sense in almost any interpretation (much like how dreams contain random elements). That could be seen as problematic but it is very likely that it is all intentional. Who doesn’t look back on their childhood as if it was some distant dream? In that regard, Malick really captured the emotions of a childhood. Everyone cannot exactly identify with growing up in Texas in the 50s, of course, but most can identify with the feelings they had during their childhood.

As a dream, The Tree of Life works very well, but it is still a film and acting is a part of it. Thankfully, this film was cast perfectly. The child actors, mainly Hunter McCracken, are great. They are not professional actors and that is a good thing because they seemed very natural on screen. Jessica Chastain (who is currently attached to every single movie coming out in the next two years…) gives an equal parts happy and melancholic performance. Sean Penn (who has stated that he had no idea what he was supposed to be doing in the movie) is absolutely fantastic. Malick most likely didn’t tell Penn exactly what he was supposed to be doing because the character himself is lost. Whatever the circumstances were, they worked. Finally, Brad Pitt is very convincing as the complicated, overly stern father. Pitt has been on an absolute roll lately, opting for challenging roles. He continues to impress.

The Tree of Life can be enjoyed just by focusing on visuals and performance, but the narrative may disappoint and even infuriate some viewers. If you let yourself be taken in by the film, though, it can be an extremely rewarding experience. It’s all a matter of deciding if the film is worth thinking and reflecting about. If you decide it is worth your time, you won’t be disappointed. If there’s one thing you can say about Malick, it’s that he doesn’t disappoint his fans.

Hating and Loving the Films of Terrence Malick

Recently a trailer for Terrence Malick’s new film, The Tree of Life came out and it was showered with praise (for the record, I thought it looked quite interesting, but I’ll wait for the full movie before I cast any judgment). Because of this, I felt compelled to write another article, my first since August of ’09. I find it fitting that I’m writing about Malick after a long hiatus in article writing since the filmmaker takes so long between his films (although he’s working rapidly now as he already has another film in the post-production stage). Since I’m in my twenties and didn’t start seriously looking at film until a few years ago, I’m going to focus on the second half of Malick’s career. I think Badlands and Days of Heaven are fine films that deserve plenty of contemplation; I just don’t feel like I’m the guy to contemplate them.

Instead, I want to write about The Thin Red Line and The New World. But I am not reviewing these two films. No, I’m going to write about how much I hated them after my first viewings and how much I love them now and how this happened. I’ll start with The Thin Red Line.

I was fourteen when The Thin Red Line came out and I had some unfair expectations for the film: I wanted it to be just like the other WWII movie of that year, Saving Private Ryan. I, of course, hated it because it was meandering (a word fourteen-year-old me would never use), had way too many shots of nature rather than action, and the biggest stars of the film were relegated to what were essentially cameos. I wrote it off and moved on.

Cut to eight or nine years later. I’m not writing any reviews or anything at this point, but I am certainly a self-titled “movie buff.” I had watched Malick’s latest, The New World and hated it just as much as The Thin Red Line. To be fair, my reasoning was a bit more justified this time. There was still the nature love fest and whispered voiceover that had annoyed me before, but my expectations were much more reasonable this time around. I wanted a realistic portrayal of the Jamestown colony sans all the Disney John Smith and Pocahontas nonsense. The New World turned out to be a slow moving look at Jamestown, with a focus on the Smith-Pocahontas relationship. There were historical facts, but it wasn’t as epic as I wanted it to be. (Epic as in epic films like Lawrence of Arabia not “epic” as in the new parlance in which it is a synonym for “awesome.”)

For whatever reason, I couldn’t dismiss The New World. I watched it again, and again, and again. Then I bought it. Then I bought the extended cut. I loved it. I went back and watched The Thin Red Line again. And again. I loved it. I bought it. What had happened? How did I go from calling The Thin Red Line a “boring movie” in which characters just “talk shit to nature,” to calling it a great film?

There is no real explanation for why I would hate two films then completely reverse my opinion. Sure there have been some films that I didn’t care for after the first viewing that stuck with me. But Malick’s films are the only ones I can think of that I flat out dismissed only to change my mind later. Somehow that whispered voiceover became almost poetic. Those “meandering” nature shots were now beautiful. Malick hadn’t cut out the stars of The Thin Red Line for no reason; they just didn’t fit into the composition he was creating.

I started to notice things about the two films. When you combined all of their elements, they were really examples of master filmmaking. They didn’t fit into the expectations that I had made for them, but that is quite a ridiculous way to judge a movie. Accepting the films for what they are, I started to realize that even my initial problems were unfounded. The Thin Red Line boring? There is a nearly hour long battle in the film. The New World? Multiple battles with the Natives. Meandering? Hardly a negative quality when the purpose is to show as many viewpoints on a subject as possible. This doesn’t apply to The New World, which I find to be quite a focused film, actually. But with The Thin Red Line the meandering is precisely the point. War can be seen through so many different perspectives: nature, excitement, insanity, fear, opportunity, anger, etc. The narrative needs to wander among the men involved to get all of these perspectives.

It’s not strange that I would notice these ideas only years after first watching a film. I can sometimes blind myself to the positive qualities of a film when my initial reaction is negative. What’s strange is that I attempted to like The Thin Red Line after I started taking movies more seriously and I still hated it. Somehow, enjoying The New World opened my eyes to Malick. The fact that I can’t explain why I now love these films actually helps to compliment them. Malick makes films that are tough to enjoy at first, but somehow, for no discernible reason, they become beloved. Surely this is not the case for everyone, but I doubt that I’m alone.

None of this is to say that Malick is some perfect filmmaker and anyone who doesn’t like him just hasn’t opened their eyes yet. That is certainly not the case. As someone who once hated his work, I have no problem accepting that some people hate these two movies. Perhaps the point of this article is that if you are one of those people, you may want to give these films another chance someday. If you already enjoy these films, check them out again anyway, they seem to get better with each viewing.

The Thin Red Line and The New World went from crap to classic in my book because my expectations were not met and I looked back to see what the films were trying to be. I am, for the first time, really looking forward to a new Malick film. I don’t know what to expect from The Tree of Life, so maybe I’ll enjoy this one the first time through.