To the Wonder (Terrence Malick, 2013)
- Sonmi451
- Joined: Fri Nov 02, 2012 2:07 pm
Re: To the Wonder (Terrence Malick, 2013)
To be fair, as far as I know most ballets/operas aren't exactly nuanced in their portayal of human relationships. As karmajuice put it, the highs and the lows - the displays of human passion - are usually what they exhibit. I think it's pretty clear that is what Malick is going for here.
- Kirkinson
- Joined: Wed Dec 15, 2004 5:34 am
- Location: Portland, OR
Re: To the Wonder (Terrence Malick, 2013)
I wonder how many of these arguments would stand if Malick had actually succeeded in making a purely impressionistic, non-verbal, non-narrative "film ballet." People are using words like "authentic" and "plausible," words that seem completely at odds with everything that is good in this film. I agree it ultimately isn't as good as I'd like it to be, but in my view this film could only be made better if it were less tied to everyday reality. If any part of this film is great, it is great because of the way it aspires to a kind of expression more like non-verbal musical forms (less theatrical than ballet, more like the narrative of a tone poem) and the rest of the film suffers in my view because Malick actually lends too much weight to the standards of plot-driven cinema and "believable" characterization. Malick seems to want to do something more boldly experimental, and I wish he could actually buckle down and do it.
- zedz
- Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 7:24 pm
Re: To the Wonder (Terrence Malick, 2013)
I think that's also a valid point, and his reflexive use of voiceover certainly hampers any efforts to create visual poetry. I know it's part of his directorial style, but in his last couple of films it's really been redundant or harmful most of the time, in my opinion.
I should clarify that I probably actually liked this film more than The Tree of Life, but I feel it has real problems that are symptomatic of severe limitations / weaknesses in Malick's cinema and which I'd love to see him jolt himself out of. I don't know whether the answer is going more abstract (which might just double down on his affectations) or less. Tackling a simple genre project might not lead to any masterpieces, but it might blow out a few cobwebs.
I should clarify that I probably actually liked this film more than The Tree of Life, but I feel it has real problems that are symptomatic of severe limitations / weaknesses in Malick's cinema and which I'd love to see him jolt himself out of. I don't know whether the answer is going more abstract (which might just double down on his affectations) or less. Tackling a simple genre project might not lead to any masterpieces, but it might blow out a few cobwebs.
- knives
- Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm
Re: To the Wonder (Terrence Malick, 2013)
Did anyone else get the sense, especially before the last half hour, that Malick was influenced by Peleshian? The film was really at it's best during those montages (though I thought the VO was too much like a Randy Newman song) and it seemed to absolutely get the essence of Peleshian.
- Luke M
- Joined: Thu Jul 12, 2007 9:21 pm
Re: To the Wonder (Terrence Malick, 2013)
This was basically a 2 hour perfume commercial about unhappy people. At least it was better than The Tree of Life.
- hearthesilence
- Joined: Fri Mar 04, 2005 4:22 am
- Location: NYC
Re: To the Wonder (Terrence Malick, 2013)
I really think Malick should do another book adaptation (and I feel this way about Quentin Tarantino for the same reason). He's really butting up against the limits of his own hermetic vision, and short of taking on collaborators who can steer things in a different direction, he can at least bring in a new element into his work by adapting someone else's. Just look at The Thin Red Line (and to go back to Tarantino, Jackie Brown) - there's no mistaking it for anything other than a Terrence Malick film, but even if it's a loose adaptation, the material really grounds him and injects something in both the dialogue and characters that you don't find in any of his other films.
- pzadvance
- Joined: Mon Nov 21, 2011 7:24 pm
- Location: Los Angeles, CA
- PfR73
- Joined: Sun Mar 27, 2005 6:07 pm
Re: To the Wonder (Terrence Malick, 2013)
Just saw a different article on Slashfilm about "Thy Kingdom Come," which gave me the context I was looking for from when I saw it on the SXSW Film Lineup.
The SXSW description was very vague: "A cancer patient mad at God; a Klansman seeking redemption; a mother blamed for her baby’s death; an elderly woman never not in love; a priest who doesn’t pass judgment, who listens: Interwoven, unscripted stories of life in a small mid-America town." Nothing about it's connection to To The Wonder.
I hadn't heard of the director or anyone in the cast list, aside from Bardem, so I had been wondering if Bardem's name in the cast list was some kind of error.
The SXSW description was very vague: "A cancer patient mad at God; a Klansman seeking redemption; a mother blamed for her baby’s death; an elderly woman never not in love; a priest who doesn’t pass judgment, who listens: Interwoven, unscripted stories of life in a small mid-America town." Nothing about it's connection to To The Wonder.
I hadn't heard of the director or anyone in the cast list, aside from Bardem, so I had been wondering if Bardem's name in the cast list was some kind of error.
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- Joined: Wed May 01, 2019 2:34 pm
Re: To the Wonder (Terrence Malick, 2013)
I watched this the other night, for the first time since seeing it theatrically, and I had a few questions about specific plot developments:
SpoilerShow
After Marina sleeps with the carpenter, we see a shot of her and Neil standing in the parking lot of a hospital, followed by the sequence of her confessing her infidelity at Sonic. Is the implication here that Marina just found out she's pregnant, and is unsure of who the father is (or perhaps she knows that it's not Neil)? A short while later, there are two shots of her with children. In the first, she's cradling a baby against her shoulder. In the second, she's with a toddler feeding ducks by a pond. Are these shots jumping to the future, showing that she did indeed have the child? Or is it more likely that they are not her children, and the film is simply re-emphasizing Marina's desire to be a mother?
My other question is about that brief sequence at the very end, where Neil is shown with a wife and two children. When I saw this in theaters, I had assumed that the woman here was Marina, and that we're seeing either a) that they eventually reconciled and started a family, or b) it's a glimpse into a hoped-for future that never actually materialized. However, on rewatching the film, I don't think that woman is Marina at all. If it was, it seems odd that Malick wouldn't allow her a close-up. If it's not Marina, then we're seeing that Neil was eventually able to settle down and commit to being a husband and father. And that, I think, is a much more moving idea than the alternative. Of course, the movie ends on Marina wandering through a field - there is much more ambiguity as to her fate. But then if you go back to the beginning, the first line in her opening voiceover is "Newborn." Maybe I'm being too literal here, but perhaps the whole film could be read as Marina recounting how her new child came to exist. That despite all the pain and suffering, in the end it lead to the creation of something good.
I'm curious to hear other people's thoughts, including the possibility that I may be way off base with this reading of the film.
My other question is about that brief sequence at the very end, where Neil is shown with a wife and two children. When I saw this in theaters, I had assumed that the woman here was Marina, and that we're seeing either a) that they eventually reconciled and started a family, or b) it's a glimpse into a hoped-for future that never actually materialized. However, on rewatching the film, I don't think that woman is Marina at all. If it was, it seems odd that Malick wouldn't allow her a close-up. If it's not Marina, then we're seeing that Neil was eventually able to settle down and commit to being a husband and father. And that, I think, is a much more moving idea than the alternative. Of course, the movie ends on Marina wandering through a field - there is much more ambiguity as to her fate. But then if you go back to the beginning, the first line in her opening voiceover is "Newborn." Maybe I'm being too literal here, but perhaps the whole film could be read as Marina recounting how her new child came to exist. That despite all the pain and suffering, in the end it lead to the creation of something good.
I'm curious to hear other people's thoughts, including the possibility that I may be way off base with this reading of the film.
- therewillbeblus
- Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm
Re: To the Wonder (Terrence Malick, 2013)
I'm glad this held up, and still feels like Malick's last good film. The Tree of Life has grown on me in recent years as a formulation of timeless, abstract memory eliciting spiritual feelings, but this film's ability to ground itself a bit more to material events allows for a different kind of experience. In a strange reversal of interest, after finding Olga Kurylenko's protagonist the most compelling part of my first viewing upon release, this watch I was greatly impacted by McAdams and that entire section of the film. Like most of Malick's most inspiring segments, it's challenging to describe why, but the delicacy of his approach to the tryst felt loose from a need for rationalization and yet still heavy with emotion like in the scene of silence around the bison. There's no arguing for cheating for the viewer, because these two people don't need to, and can't, stop to become conscious of reason for the energy between them in the moment. Malick's experimental style could not be, and perhaps never has been, more perfectly utilized than here- evoking that elusive feeling of attraction that occurs without our cognitions' approval. The wave of images moving like scattered memories elicited the best of ToL's spirituality, firmly rooting it in the esoteric logic of magical romantic auras. I really like the rest of the film for moving through a narrative of hills and valleys in relationships, as they run parallel and through individual lived experience, but that departure into a celestial dream -that's all too familiarly present in rare lucky moments on earth- is something to behold.
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- Joined: Sun Sep 13, 2020 5:23 pm
Re: To the Wonder (Terrence Malick, 2013)
I've only become really aware of Terrence Malick in recent years but he is quickly climbing the ladder when it comes to my favorite film makers. I love The Tree of Life, The New World and The Thin Red Line. I was a bit underwhelmed by Day's of Heaven, where I thought the story got in the way of the emotions Malick is able to evoke with his images. In To The Wonder he succeeds, in my opinion to evoke said emotions quite well with little to no characterization of the people on screen. Sometimes it did feel dull, maybe because Affleck isn't the most emotive actor and wasn't really able to pull his weight to make this as good as it could have been.
- aox
- Joined: Fri Jun 20, 2008 12:02 pm
- Location: nYc
- Walter Kurtz
- Joined: Sat Jul 25, 2020 3:03 pm
Re: To the Wonder (Terrence Malick, 2013)
please god no
- therewillbeblus
- Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm
Re: To the Wonder (Terrence Malick, 2013)
The extended cut of The New World was fantastic, couldn't tell the difference with Tree of Life. It's promising
- Walter Kurtz
- Joined: Sat Jul 25, 2020 3:03 pm
Re: To the Wonder (Terrence Malick, 2013)
please god no more pain
malick is the only director in the world bad enough to make rachel mcadams seem boring
malick is the only director in the world bad enough to make rachel mcadams seem boring
- aox
- Joined: Fri Jun 20, 2008 12:02 pm
- Location: nYc
Re: To the Wonder (Terrence Malick, 2013)
I thought Tree of Life opened up a little bit. I might prefer the extended cut. Despite being beautiful, I'm still not enamored with the film in general. I agree with you completely about The New World's extended cut.therewillbeblus wrote: ↑Mon Aug 14, 2023 7:25 pmThe extended cut of The New World was fantastic, couldn't tell the difference with Tree of Life. It's promising
I'm genuinely curious about this new cut. I'm one of the few people who absolutely adored To the Wonder and preferred it to Tree of Life, and certainly the IMO the dreadful Knight of Cups. Besides Days of Heaven, TtW is my favorite Malick.
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- Joined: Fri May 18, 2018 3:07 pm
Re: To the Wonder (Terrence Malick, 2013)
I still think that the limited release, awards consideration cut of The New World is the superior iteration, perhaps because he was mandated to deliver it by a set date and had less time to continually second-guess himself
- therewillbeblus
- Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm
Re: To the Wonder (Terrence Malick, 2013)
I love this film too, and I respectfully disagree with WK's onboarding intern - the Rachel McAdams segment was easily the highlight, so if there's more of that, then I'm game. As I mentioned in my writeup just a few posts above the announcement, it's a rare experience to watch an affair under these circumstances divorced completely from moral judgment, emphasizing the infinite value of their connection in a vacuum
- aox
- Joined: Fri Jun 20, 2008 12:02 pm
- Location: nYc
Re: To the Wonder (Terrence Malick, 2013)
That's an interesting perspective. Do you think your critique could transfer and apply to a film like The English Patient?therewillbeblus wrote: ↑Mon Aug 14, 2023 9:46 pmit's a rare experience to watch an affair under these circumstances divorced completely from moral judgment, emphasizing the infinite value of their connection in a vacuum
- therewillbeblus
- Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm
Re: To the Wonder (Terrence Malick, 2013)
Not at all. There are plenty of movies about affairs where that central romance is True Love and ‘all that matters’, etc. but by “these circumstances” I mean that it’s a fragment of the story as an offshoot from the predominant narrative where Affleck’s partner being cheated against is a fully realised, sympathetic, main character. The film allows us to feel that way but doesn’t ask us to choose sides - each romance is able to be validated exclusively from the other. Most movies wouldn’t do that. I like The English Patient but they have to turn the cuckolded husband into a non-character who emotionally kamikazes with premeditation to nullify his value against the love at the center. Even the films that hold space for the merits in the affair and the marriage usually compare or contrast or force confrontation and friction. This just lets them be. It’s admirably adult.
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- Joined: Wed May 01, 2019 2:34 pm
Re: To the Wonder (Terrence Malick, 2013)
FWIW, I asked a colleague who is connected to Malick's camp about this, and he said the rumor is not true - Malick is not working on an extended cut of TTW.