942 The Tree of Life

[matrixschmatrix]

Oh, please, ghettoizing the music on Tree of Life as sounding like it comes from a chill out compilation is obviously an attack on that music, since you don't bother to make any actual critiques about how it's used in the movie. And you are right, I shouldn't have referred to all classical music, merely all classical music that might possibly sound like something that had been on a chill out compilation to you, a listener who evidently doesn't really give a damn about it. I'm sure there are one or two pieces that category wouldn't include.

[NABOB OF NOWHERE]

Well as a final gesture let me assure you that I care about this music and have about 80% of it in my collection. My great aversion to this film and the initial impetus to the 'ad' sideswipe is that the whole thing smells of a type of corporate mind-set to me and hence the allusion to the world of advertising in both the portentousness of the imagery and the appropriation of this music in its reductive guise of Holy Minimalism or Chill Out Spiritual as a sort of cosmic varnish that becomes reflected in the gleam of the eyes of the zealot.
Gorecki's 3rd was used to startling effect by Pialat as was Barry Guy's piece in a Nike ad but here en masse it just seems ,well, 'lazy'......yes that word again.

[zedz]

It seems pretty clear to me what the nature of Nabob's criticism is, just as it seems obtuse to interpret it as a slam on classical music en masse. I mean, 'Gimme Shelter' is a great, great song, but that doesn't mean you can't call out Martin Scorsese for using it for the umpteenth time.

[knives]

Depends, is the umpteenth time being used well? That sort of criticism would be like getting mad at Ozu for his head on shots. It's an odd directorial quirk that gives them signature.

[matrixschmatrix]

Well as a final gesture let me assure you that I care about this music and have about 80% of it in my collection. My great aversion to this film and the initial impetus to the 'ad' sideswipe is that the whole thing smells of a type of corporate mind-set to me and hence the allusion to the world of advertising in both the portentousness of the imagery and the appropriation of this music in its reductive guise of Holy Minimalism or Chill Out Spiritual as a sort of cosmic varnish that becomes reflected in the gleam of the eyes of the zealot.
Gorecki's 3rd was used to startling effect by Pialat as was Barry Guy's piece in a Nike ad but here en masse it just seems ,well, 'lazy'......yes that word again.

Well, ok, I wish you would actually have said that in the first place- I still disagree with it, but at least there's a critique being made there. It's difficult for me to see a 'corporate mindset' in any of Malick's work (I've caught up on him since seeing ToL), but it's true that there are or have been a fair number of commercials that use somewhat Malickian imagery in trying to sell their product. I would argue that, much with 'chill out' albums, that represents a corporate attempt to co-opt something valid and artistic, and in no way diminishes the actual artistic product or style being ripped off.

If your first association with classical music or Malick's style is with something commercial or corporate, that represents success on the part of the people doing the co-opting; they have successfully married that aesthetic or music primarily to whatever dumb shit they're selling, instead of letting it have the meaning it originally had.

[Peacock]

It seems pretty clear to me what the nature of Nabob's criticism is

An elitist attack on the people who enjoy the film?? "Ship of fools" etc... Not sure how any of this stuff helps people further analyse or discuss it.

[NABOB OF NOWHERE]

Elitist ? Moi? The ship of fools thing was a snarky retort to being called 'foolish' in Matrix's previous post. Please do your research before using the "E' word.

[Tom Hagen]

Matrix's biggest error was reengaging this.

[Mr Sausage]

This has gotten to the point where no one is engaging with the film. People are engaging with the opposing side (and whatever it represents to them) through the film. It's about this person being a zealot, and that person being a philistine, ect, ect. Unfortunately, while the former side can come off as sanctimonious and pompous, the latter side comes off as insecure, and that insecurity seems to breed an antagonistic atmosphere about everything they write, as tho' they're preempting attacks they feel that anyone who likes the film is implicitly making on them. Not helping is that the reaction to this antagonistic atmosphere among some people is to treat this movie as tho' it were a religious text that is therefore above criticism. Both sides are being hypersensitive.

The movie has been lost in this ideological warfare. Column A doesn't want to like the movie because they are afraid that that will make them Column B, who they hate, and vice versa. It's ad hominem.

Both sides are wrong.

[gfxtwin]

Hey everyone, new guy here. I'm a huge Tree of Life and Malick fan. I've seen the movie multiple times, and have posted my thoughts on it on blogs and boards around the net. I figured I'd share what I think here and, in the process, start things off with a bang. Hope you like reading simplistic film analyses as much as watching arthouse films:

The director’s main argument and vision, I would say, is that everything on earth (and possibly throughout the universe) is shaped by both “nature” and “grace” and that the latter of the two is the more constructive path to follow. Furthermore, by showing how these two elements have shaped everything we see and know about (and I do mean everything), Malick hopes to illustrate how all life is connected and related like branches of…you guessed it…a tree! By showing how the earliest known life eventually branched out into humans as we exist now (or in the 1950′s to be exact), Malick is probably hoping that the viewer, more than anything else, will see how vital his “nature and grace” theory is, how deep it goes, and how it is the key to understanding ourselves and the way to bridge our connection to the world…and possibly beyond.

”Nature” and “grace”, to Malick, are respectively the selfishness and brutality of self-preservation and the healing power of love and compassion. Nature might be considered as the “me first” condition that a lifeform learns early on — Survival instinct, adaptation, self-interest, whatever you want to call it. Nature has always been. It is the movement in the universe that carved the planets and set the foundations that allow life to flourish. Grace, on the other hand, came about in more complex organisms through a higher sense of awareness of other life forms that occurs over time. It is the compassion, sympathy, and love that develops from an organism realizing it is not alone in the universe and other organisms are trying to survive as well. It is also the path to “God”, Malick might say.

As I said earlier, what he wants to illustrate in the film, I believe, is that these two forces are what drive all life and shape everything around us that we see. There is no way around this fact, according to Malick, so once we become aware that they both exist, all we are left with is simply a choice of which to follow. Technology, architecture, weapons, war, competition and everything else borne from ego and self-preservation fall into the category of Nature and are almost always destructive, to sum it up. Grace, on the other hand, may be considered everything in life that is remaining in nature’s absence. That means that an existence free of conflict, greed and competition is a world of grace, according to Malick, because with those egotistical drives removed from the equation, what else is left to do except love one another?

There will, of course, always be conflict, because nature and grace have always clashed in the environment around us (basically all of earth and maybe beyond that) as well as within the souls of mankind – like the inner conflict that is clearly shown in the disillusioned adult Jack. The fact that all behavior of life observed in the universe, including human behavior (like Jack’s), can range from selfless love to violence is evidence that this macro/micro comparison has some merit. Malick would say, though, that grace is the more constructive path and should be sought by those who can find it. The existence of Malick’s nature has preceded grace by billions of years and thus is a pretty tough habit for humans to shake, but as love and compassion keep growing, Malick might say that we’ll find a kind of heaven on earth. He shows grace in many different ways. Flowing streams of life-giving water. Children being kissed goodnight by a loving mother. A carnivorous prehistoric beast showing mercy to a weaker herbivore. A butterfly landing on a woman’s arm. The birth of a baby. A brightly-colored sunset filtered through the limbs of a tree. Basically, the peaceful and compassionate and even spiritual side of the world. And that’s about as far as I can muse on the subject, because if grace is true, unfiltered love and compassion, a loser at the game of love like myself ain’t an expert on the subject.

However, I love to think and analyze and I’m okay at interpreting movies, so let’s talk about the elephant in the room: The creation sequence. It’s probably the most confounding twenty minutes in any film released this year. Many respectable critics couldn’t make heads or tails of it. I think I have a solid-enough interpretation, though:

A mother who just lost her child contemplates why a kind God would allow death and despair to exist. What does God truly think about his/her/its children? A Job-like answer is provided in the form of the twenty-minute scene depicting the birth of the universe all the way from the big bang to the death of the age of reptiles which brought forth the age of mammals (and thus humans).

So why is this shit even here? I think it has two main purposes:

1) To provide the mother’s question with a celestial response that more or less amounts to the quote at the beginning of the film, “Where were you when I forged the stars and heavens…etc”. In other words, Malick might say that God’s plate is full and the conflicts of people on this planet are utterly inconsequential and insignificant in the grand scope of existence. In other, other words, it can be seen as the ultimate way of telling the mother, “look, yes you have problems, and, yes you are going through a lot right now, but you must stay strong because in the bigger picture these problems really don’t matter.” Not really the answer anyone who just lost a loved one wants to hear, but it’s true, isn’t it? It’s why most people don’t offer any reaction to a news report about a murder beyond a quick, “gee, that sucks.” Oh, and if you haven’t realized it by now, yes, The Tree of Life is unapologetically a film with strong elements of a kind of spiritual belief in God. It doesn’t question the existence of God – it sets out to make a philosophical argument on the basis that this God is already here. It also seems to be more or less a kind of traditional Christian God, complete with promises of heaven and everything. This can be a hard pill to swallow, but to understand the movie and its bizarre creation sequence, viewers just have to accept that Malick is making what is essentially boils down to a prayer or hymn to life (Ebert called it). It can be seen as religious, yes, but at least it doesn’t star that douche Kirk Cameron.

2) The creation sequence also substantially fleshes out Malicks “Nature and grace shape all life and are the key to understanding how all life is connected” thesis statement. If the film’s opening declaration about how you can only follow the path of nature or grace seemed way too reaching and simplistic a statement to make, just wait until Malick attempts to show how they essentially formed EVERY SINGLE THING that has ever existed. Surprisingly, this ridiculously ambitious way of backing up his argument works. We see how the powerful force of nature merged the planets together, formed mountains and volcanoes that erupt with astonishing brunt physical energy, and basically carved and manipulated every inch of the earth’s surface. Life itself is borne from Malick’s harsh and violent nature – early single-celled organisms that strive for nothing more than self-preservation were here before any other living thing. It isn’t until more complex and intelligent lifeforms appear that grace does so as well. This idea is somewhat heavy handedly illustrated when we are shown a meat-eating dinosaur sparing the life of easy prey – a sick or sleeping young herbivore – and trotting off after gracefully tapping the downed creature’s head with its clawed foot. Could this have ever happened? Of course, we’ll never know, but given what we do know about the animals now (Paleontologists say that dinosaurs were not only far more intelligent than once thought, but they could have been caring parents as well), an act of dinosaur compassion might not be a stretch, scientifically speaking.

Anyway, dino-mercy was the genesis of grace, which evolved and grew more complex over time. I’m sure some film critics and scholars will find much more to dissect in the creation sequence, but still too many people don’t have a clue as to why it was even included in the film, so hopefully I just presented two very plausible reasons.

Following the creation sequence is the Texas family section that makes up the majority of the film’s running time. Malick and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki use the camera in that unique impressionistic manner to show the typically portrayed 1950′s American family (white, middle class, religious) and their drama, conflicts and growing pains. What it essentially boils down to, in my mind, is in line with what the creation sequence was about: Nature and Grace (now both personified by Jack’s father and mother), according to Malick, continuously shape life on earth. Macrocosmic, microcosmic, etc.

The more one sees of the family, the more it becomes clear just how well-developed Malick thesis about how nature and grace shape all life is. The father is very strict because he is passing on his sharp awareness of the nature instinct to his sons. Passing on an awareness of how self preservation is needed in a world where it undoubtedly exists. He does this by teaching them how to fight and showing them how capitalists think in order to get ahead, make money, and compete. Mr. Obrien didn’t understand how you can never be “too good” in order to succeed in life until he became a failed musician and inventor. The man was harsh and strict with his children, but mostly it was out of concern for their future in a harsh and strict world. The mother, on the other hand, serves as the main emotional grounding for the boys. They are afraid of their father’s strict demeanor. She, however, loves them unconditionally, whether they become successful in life or not. This passing of unconditional love very much fits Malick’s definition of grace. Thus, the father and mother each represent the forces of nature and grace in the universe, and like the earth that is shaped by those instincts, Mr. and Ms. Obrien’s children are filled with and conflicted by both.

While on the subject or Mr. and Mrs. Obrien, a valid criticism of this movie is in regards to the very cut-and-dry portrayal of gender roles. It’s almost absurd. The father is a pure man’s man and the mother is ethereal and feminine to the point of being more of a symbol. While this is no doubt peculiar, I just want to point out that it isn’t as big of a problem as it seems. Why? Because:

1. The scenes of the family are intended to be from the perspective of Jack’s memory. We are shown things that may or not be as they actually happened. This is why the mother is shown to be almost free of ” flaws”; most children develop a stronger attachment to one particular parent or member of the family. This is a psychological occurrence that is still often observable today, although quite a bit less “Freudian” than it was originally thought to be.

2. Gender roles were cut and dry in 1950′s America. Unless someone’s sexuality was part of the accepted norm, it wasn’t usually expressed. At least not in public view. Thankfully this is not the case as much today, but given the times that Jack and his family grew up, the stereotypical portrayal of gender roles could very much be historically accurate.

However, what if someone just isn’t categorized as a hardened working man’s man or a feminine girly girl? Where does that leave Malick’s theory of nature and grace? I suppose this complicates things, but his answer might be that although some people do not totally embody either nature or grace, they were still shaped by the two. Mr. and Mrs. Obrien were more symbol than character, anyway. In other words, if one’s parents were not wholly the embodiment of either nature or grace, there is still nature and grace within them that influenced their children. That and the world around them.

And if there was any doubt that Malick’s definition of nature exists in the world, one need only take a look at the scenes of modern times in Tree. What do you see? Towering skyscrapers, glass and steel, greed, competition. All the products of nature. However, there is still a glimmer of grace within. Many still love and are loved. Looking upon a single tree in the midst of all this soulless industry somehow rekindled Jack’s flame of grace. Did it spark within him an understanding of God? I don’t think there is a clear answer, but I’d like to think that Malick’s trees symbolize the entirety of what he is trying to say with this movie; his thesis statement. When Jack looks upon the sole tree in the city’s garden and suddenly the creation sequence and his memories of childhood kick in, what we are being shown is his introspective journey to understanding who he is, where he fits into the world, why his identity is fragmented by his parents, and what his future will be. The microcosmic tree represents the macrocosmic tree.

After the images totally wash over him and his train of thought arrives at it’s destination, he realizes how understanding nature and grace is the key to coping with his disillusionment. They have shaped all of existence. This is primarily what we are shown from the moment the creation sequence begins to the moment the childhood segment ends. What he ultimately takes away is that embracing love/grace is the path to choose in life because it allows the connection to other souls to occur.

The film, despite it’s attempt to explain the meaning of life, fails to be about the lives of everyone. If you didn’t like the movie, you might be thinking, “Why the fuck would someone need to make a two and a half hour-long movie about the importance of love that includes nostalgia, outer space, and dinosaurs?” This might be a good point to bring up to the Malick snobs, because I can’t quite figure it out either. The philosophical elements all add up, sure, but it really is wacky at times. And when Malick illustrats what his vision grace/love actually IS…I just scratch my head.

So apparently, grace might be the heavenly kind. I’m not really certain why Malick felt compelled to include the afterlife segment. Is it a poetic and abstract representation of Jack resolving his family conflicts by hugging his father and thus embracing a Christian concept forgiveness? Is it simply Jack coming to terms with his past? I don’t quite get it, and I wasn’t very moved by it. The scene is beautifully done, and I enjoyed watching the family reunite with the clear-eyed realization that all of their trials and tribulations were, as “God” put it during the creation sequence, insignificant in the grand scope of existence. However, I felt…slightly uncomfortable with the gung-ho Christian themes (no offense, Christians). When coupled with the creation sequence, it’s like God is saying to the mother, “Don’t worry Mrs. Obrien, yes, you’re going through a lot of pain right now, but fear not: your problems are insignificant because in heaven everything will be alright.” It just seems like really safe and sappy way to end the film.

On most levels, The Tree of Life says a lot of interesting things, and I’m glad it exists. The visuals alone are worth the price of admission and the whole thing is, as some of the critics put it, a remarkable hymn to life. The ambition, the scope, and the level of craftsmanship on display is beyond most other films and it’s these elements that make The Tree of Life a must-see and an important landmark in cinema. That said, there’s not a whole lot of room to relate to it on a personal level unless you’re a straight, white, middle class, religious dude who grew up in the 50′s. Malick is most or all of these things, as far as I know, and I understand that a film about the meaning of life is always going to be personal to the one who made it, but at the very least he could have given more attention to the troubles that non-white, non-religious, non-straight, etc, families were facing at the time – most of which would make the occasional conflicts of the Obrien family seem like days of heaven.

In summation: The Tree of Life is a movie written by a modern poet/philosopher that attempts pondering big questions. These questions are mostly personal, are filtered through the prism of his own identity, and attempt to identify where he belongs in the scope of all existence. This may sound like the work of someone with too much time on his hands, but keep in mind that Terrence Malick is a true philosopher – a harvard graduate and professor at MIT. His method of coping with these questions came about through heavy observation, and what he observed and settled on is that everything in existence is formed by the paths of nature and grace. Nature is movement that everything in the perceivable universe has towards self preservation, and grace is the love and compassion and spiritual “something” that exists along side – or in conflict to – it. To prove that they shape everything, he really didn’t skip out on much. That is to say, his example begins with the creation of the universe and ends with the universe’s demise. Why go through so much trouble? Because, like any great philosopher, his goal is to back up his metaphysical thesis with evidence. And since Tree is a film, he uses appropriately poetic visuals the vast majority of the time to present it. So when you know what his definitions of grace and nature are, and observe where they fit into the images being shown, you start to notice juxtapositions like, “wow, the violent and awesome way the cosmos were constructed shows the true power of nature, yet the occasional compassion of prehistoric biology shows some proof of grace” all the way to, “the violence and power our parents can have shows nature in action, yet the love they also give might be an example of grace.” The more one observes the film, the more it becomes clear that Malick’s thematic observations carry weight in how they are consistently repeated on a macrocosmic and microcosmic level. What one takes away, in the end, is that life is all connected and even though self-preservation is written in our souls, we have the capability of choosing the path of love and compassion. It is this path that will be the most beneficial for mankind due to the fact that it is the key to human understanding as well as the fact that the path of nature is inherently more destructive.

————————————————————————

Overall, despite the lack of developed anthropological elements in the film (which I would argue are important to any movie that tries to cover human existence on this scope), not to mention a total absence of any humor whatsoever, The Tree of Life manages to do a lot of things right. It is a beautiful movie, which is something even the haters might admit. Not everyone can or should “get it”. I think I fall into that category as well. But hopefully upon reading this post more will have a better understanding of just what the heck it is.

[Zot!]

I just saw Contact again last night, and ToF is not disimilar...beach scene anyone? Although incredibly upfront and obvious, I think Contact had more to say about the themes explored in ToF.

[MichaelB]

Gorecki's 3rd was used to startling effect by Pialat

It's probably worth noting that this was when hardly anyone had heard the piece - it was a good six or seven years before David Zinman's recording became a surprise chartbuster. In fact, this works against the film in retrospect, because it makes what was then a daringly original choice sound trite and obvious - but that's not remotely Pialat's fault.

(Talking of which, I recently wrote a programme note for The Hole in the Ground, a British nuclear-defence propaganda film that started out with Strauss's 'Also sprach Zarathustra'. My immediate reaction was "God, not this tired cliché again", which was a little unfair because the film was made six years before 2001. In fact, when I realised this I then wondered if Kubrick had seen The Hole in the Ground when doing background research for Dr Strangelove - which is highly plausible, given the year and the strong probability that Kubrick would have had a look at official government-backed civil defence films, since he's known to have studied the subject obsessively during pre-production!)

[HistoryProf]

Sigh, I wish I cared enough about this film one way or the other, but it left me indifferent-- a fate worse than being worse, really. I could appreciate what Malick does at times, and the film is quite strong for a 45 minute stretch or so immediately following the creation sequence, but it's just too long, has no strong narrative pull, and whoever it was here that described it as a 2 1/2 hour perfume commercial deserves a ribbon of some sort. No idea whatsoever what Penn's two minutes of screen-time contributed other than a name for the poster (and that may be the point). I'm glad y'all got your masterpiece, but perhaps the reason many people are feeling let down is because, well, they were let down?

I watched this a week or so ago and this is all I can come to in terms of a reaction. I did think the Waco segment after the dinosaurs was magnificent in how it managed to capture the nostalgic reverie of childhood and its fleeting moments, images, sensations, and feelings that we all have within us. There are moments that are brilliant - like the scene where they are at the court house and prisoners are being escorted away...those moments that would sear into a child's mind. The fireflies, playing with flashlights in a dark room, running down the street at dusk on a summer night, the kiss from grandma, the day you broke a window - those are evocative of every memory every person on earth carries with them and the way our childhoods exist as compartmentalized fragments in our memory banks that surface when queued by sights, sounds, and smells.

Beyond this, however, I just didn't FEEL anything. I could not for the life of me understand what the point of Sean Penn's presence was...why he was so depressed....why he was in the desert...why he was in the damned movie. In a way, the entire film is as unfocused as our memories of childhood, so maybe that was the point, but I doubt it. In the end I was very much enthralled with bits and pieces, but on the whole I just couldn't bring myself to care much. I sure as hell wasn't weeping.

And this sums up my thoughts on the ending as well as I could voice it:

I don't know what to make of the ending; on the one hand, it might be the worst thing Malick has ever shot, the only stretch of film I've seen from him that is truly, outright bad and shamefully so... on the other, I'm open to seeing the film again to see if my reaction to it is any different. As it is, though, I found it to be a very overwrought, overblown film; in comparison with, say, 2001, which so many can't help but compare to ToL... well, let's just say that Kubrick's film feels completely thought-out, coherent, fully-formed: every scene serves a purpose and masterfully supports the whole of the film. But I didn't feel that at all with ToL. In this respect, I second mfunk's criticism of the bookending sections as an attempt to provide a thesis for a film that doesn't really have one.

A few scattered thoughts on the dinosaurs:
It pains me to say that they were the most disappointing aspect of the film for me. I thought the elasmosaurus on the beach was totally convincing, and the young parasaurolophus in the forest was fine, too. But the scene at the river just looks terrible. The previous poster who said the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park looked like shit is crazy. When I watched that film recently I was amazed again at how much its CG animals remain the gold standard almost 20 years later. The theropod on the river (a troodon, maybe?) just didn't have the weight and presence of a real animal and at no point is it successfully integrated into its environment. But worse than that is the way the dinosaurs' eyes are animated in that scene, particularly the eyes of the defenseless one.

SpoilerShow

It is indeed too easy to read emotion into them; not so much that I would call them anthropomorphic, but enough that I would say they look more like a puppy's eyes than those of a wild bird or reptile. With wilder, less easily legible eyes I could have been free to interpret the scene as a simple illustration of survival instincts ("Hey, this thing is dying but not wounded; maybe it's sick and I shouldn't eat it") but with the look in the little one's eyes I felt I was being pulled too far in one particular direction.

After seeing it twice it strikes me even more as the one really wrong note in the film.

And my geekiest complaint about that scene: scientific consensus would now favor giving a small theropod predator like the one in The Tree of Life some feathers, especially if it is a troodon. I would have expected Malick to get this right, given his well-known ornithological enthusiasm, not to mention the fact that the shot of the elasmosaur was based on a Larry Felder painting from a ten-year-old book that contains copious illustrations of feathered dinosaurs.

This is why I love this forum...no matter the topic, someone here knows a whole hell of a lot about it! The one thing the film did spark in me is a desire to read something on the current theories (consensus?) on the extinction events - any suggestions on trade paper available for the layman?

[Mr. Ned]

Finally saw this again over the weekend and felt the same about it second time around. I'll humbly retract my "zeitgeist" comment from a month or two ago because, outside of a conversation I had about it with an older friend the same age as Malick, the narrative is so wrapped around Jack it cannot be considered one of Malick's intentions. The extreme close-ups of Sean Penn speckled throughout got more and more abysmal as it went on: what is he even doing in the film? Malick captures youth and its passing follies and triumphs so beautifully in the Waco sections but it hurt my head when Sean Penn suddenly shows up and mugs it up in some sparse room full of windows. I was dazzled by Pitt this time around though; he delivers an effectively restrained performance and oscillates between sternness and vexed longing for his misplaced ambitions; a scene at the beginning, where he admits "I made him feel shame, my shame..." was one of the most powerful scenes for me, next to the Jessica Chastain swirling about the front yard. Speaking of which, the mother's mystery -- what actually happens to her after her son's funeral? -- is conspicuously absent from everything that happens after gigantic emphasis of her suffering at the beginning. What happens to her? The soft, terrorized cries we briefly hear near the beginning allude that her son's death affected her profoundly, but we never hear any mention of her whereabouts after the consult she receives from neighbors after the funeral, not even in Penn's desultory wanderings around abstract office-building land. She's at the beach at the end, but that whole sequence felt so convoluted second time around I didn't know what to think. I imagine, like in all of Malick's work, there were a lot of tangents left on the cutting room floor. The dinosaur sequence felt contrived this time, too. If Malick is going to juxtapose Jack's life with a concurrent linearity of the cosmos, he should have gone full-blown and added prehistoric mammals, our primeval ancestors, neanderthals --but that may be treading too close to Space Odyssey territory.

Anyways, I think this is a fine film but one that has been, and will likely continue to be, vastly overrated. I'm not sure it would have won palme d'or had Von Trier not had his little outburst. I found myself thinking about Ivan's Childhood a lot as I re-watched scenes, another film that deals with the childhood's twilight. I'll take Ivan over Jack any day. I'd say this is easily Malick's fairest effort, although I am intrigued by his recent resurgence of projects.

[dad1153]

Gotham Awards: ‘Tree Of Life,’ ‘Beginners’ Share Kudos For Best Feature. Awards season is in full swing so small festival wins like this could add-up to a Best Picture nomination for "TOL," whether it deserves it or not.

[hearthesilence]

It arguably has the most impressive moments of any film he's ever made, but as a whole, there's no way I'd place it above Badlands, Days of Heaven or maybe even The Thin Red Line. But, I would much rather see this win Best Picture than the other 'favorites' being peddled right now.

[The Narrator Returns]

It arguably has the most impressive moments of any film he's ever made, but as a whole, there's no way I'd place it above Badlands, Days of Heaven or maybe even The Thin Red Line. But, I would much rather see this win Best Picture than the other 'favorites' being peddled right now.

I agree. The idea of TToL losing Best Picture to The Help makes me sick.

[MattXFLexicon]

I wrote these comments this past June, 2011, and my feelings haven't really changed since then. I just haven't had time to post this here until now.

June 6th, 2011

While it pains me to have to write this, and while it’s all the more frustrating with the knowledge that few will agree with me here, if any. I walked out of “The Tree of Life” after about the first hour, and based on the comments I’ve seen about the second hour, the film essentially played out in the same mode. I have liked Malick’s earlier work, and while I gave the film the benefit of the doubt, it felt like a film that never started for me.

I just never connected with it, and I felt it doesn’t work in terms of its own objectives.
I have no problems with non-linear, abstract, experimental avant garde films, I have seen countless experimental films, but I have found that such films only work for me, if there is a real intellectual weight and focus, and most of the purely experimental, art house films I have seen, very few of them actually work, or carry the necessary weight and focus.

For myself, the argument “the idea is the most important thing”, which is the basis for many in various Avant Garde fields, that argument just doesn’t wash for me. Anyone can have an idea, that simply should be a start, the means to an end, and not just the end itself. For me, it’s a cop-out to just argue that the “idea” is all important, and something you just have to feel. There has to be some weight, and some substance to the “idea” itself.

“The Tree of Life” feels like it’s offering hollow insight. I felt like I never learned anything, (while the following point might read as arrogant) it didn’t inform me of anything I already didn’t know. As a film it seemed to be exploring God, the Universe, and their relationship to Man. Buy these memes have been explored countless times, perhaps it’s unreasonable, but I expected to learn something new. I should note I have liked Malick’s earlier films, and so there was a certain format I was expecting

I assumed it would be (just a fraction more of) a character study about the Sean Penn character, his memory of his childhood, and some insight about his brothers death. What we see is Sean Penn in some kind of existential crisis about his memories, and what should just be the starting point for the film, just never goes anywhere, there’s no arc, we don’t see him do anything about it. He complains about how shallow society is, and a disconnect to God / nature, and then it just sit’s there. As soon as the back-story about Brad Pitt, and the mother starts to become engrossing, we are torn away with the creation segment.

While the film is beautifully done, I admit, and the creation segment is technically well crafted, I’d say the bulk of the footage could have been dropped into any documentary about the Earth’s creation. I’d have to say this segment reminded me of the documentary "Baraka" (1993), but that documentary achieves the same ends with greater effect, in terms of seeking and connecting spiritually and grace throughout the world. So, the Creation segment just feels dropped in, and it illustrates the problem with this film, TOF is exploring two conflicting ideas in one film, and it just doesn’t mesh. It feels as if Malick would have been better served if he had created two separate films that each focuses on the major themes - Penn’s relationship to his childhood, and his bigger questions concerning spiritually.

Probably one of the things that irks me the most are the comparisons to Kubrick’s “2001”. It’s true that Kubrick’s film was open ended and full of abstractions, but there was a clear narrative thread in “2001” and a great intellectual focus within it’s bigger ideas, it wasn’t just a random succession of moments. While it’s true that our mind often works with conflicting ideas at the same moment, the thrust of the film seems to be “why did you take our Son / Brother away, God” and “How can I get closer to you?” As well as Sean Penn’s comment early in the film: “There are two ways through life, the way of nature and the way of grace.”

Now, I was puzzled by the statement, (subjectively based on my personal definition of Grace, with Grace having to do with an appreciation of nature.) Now is Grace being defined, based on what is depicted, by the innocence of childhood? Or that a child’s appreciation of nature is the embodiment of Grace? Or is grace defined by leading a pious life? The objective isn’t very clear. While it’s a film about spiritually, I never feel it has anything concrete to say about the subject.

I am aware that proponents will argue, “it’s a film about selective memories”, but again those themes, memory and perception, have been explored before, for example “Memento” (2000), “Eternal Sunrise of the Spotless Mind” (2003) and even subject of perception in a documentary like “What The Bleep Do We Know”, and so once again, that argument just doesn’t wash with me.

I never feel like I’m allowed to develop any investment with the Sean Penn and Brad Pitt character’s, while the acting is nicely done, and understated, I feel Penn and Pitt seem wasted, when you consider the intent of the film, any actors could have filled in. What’s astonishing is the fact people will complain, legitimately, about the lack of character development in other genre films, and yet “The Tree of Life” suffers from the same issue for me, and somehow that is acceptable?

To those who appreciate the film, to each his own, but I do have to wonder if a segment of the public is being duped. I also understand why it seems to have such an appeal to a certain demographic of art house film coinsurers, there’s a real desire, a desperate hunger for spiritual films with some substance, and films which are not bound by some propagandist dogma. But ‘open ended’ films can be a two edged sword, there has to be some real insight, and weight, to something that’s open to interpretation, and this just seems to a succession of slice of life moments, that isn’t enough for me.

I just felt it had to be said.

[knives]

That's a lot of nothing for a lot of nothing. Also posting this on this board is a bit of preaching to the choir since about half don't think it's good. That said I'm sure they'd agree that you can't fairly judge a movie based on just a part of it. Unless you've seen the whole your comment's basically worthless.

[Grand Illusion]

And to think, he didn't even make it to the part of the film that I hated.

[tarpilot]

I think that's the first non-pejorative reference to What the Bleep I've seen since my tenth grade sociology class

[whaleallright]

A question for those who have picked up the DVD/Blu-Ray: does it seem like the voice-over is much higher in the mix than it was in theaters?

It certainly seems that way to me. I remember portions of the voice over being difficult to make out in the theater -- and I'm not alone, because some critics, including those who attended the Cannes screening, complained about this. I think it was a deliberate choice. By (seemingly) always placing the voice-over highest in the sound hierarchy, the home video version gives the voices more power to interpret the image for us -- they somehow sound more "authoritative" when they are not competing for our attention with music and effects.

Of course, I may be wrong -- it could just be the difference between the surround sound of a movie theater and my home stereo system. Or my memories may be deceiving me. So I'd like to hear from others about this.

[zedz]

My memory of the film (seen in a cinema with an excellent sound system) was that the voice-over did indeed emerge from and recede into the soundscape, and there were definitely passages that you needed to work to make out (or, as the person sitting next to me put it: "What?")

[rohmerin]

Tarkovski meets MTV + Oediphus complex + 2001 + Jurasic Park + some Disney = Palme d'or + big orgasms in Paris highbrow audiences.

Visual poem ? May be, but not my cup of tea.

[knives]

Even as a fan of the movie I have to say that's the best description I've seen yet.