I saw Terrence Malick‘s new film, The Tree of Life. Two initial thoughts: First, it made a lot less sense than I thought it would. Second, it was beautifully done.
You might hate it. A goodly chunk of the audience did, just now. Sighs turned to snickers throughout, devolving to catcalls, heckling and general ruckus as the end credits flashed on screen. The moviegoing masses — at least the vocal ones — truly did detest this film.
I didn’t hate it at all, but I can’t really blame the folks who did. In fairness, I’ll make what I assume to be their case: Tree of Life doesn’t make a lot of immediate sense. It’s a long, disjointed postcard of imperfect 1950s life bookended by God imagery, Jurassic Park-style digital dinosaurs, and color-shifted galactic eye candy from the Hubble space telescope. (Really.) If you’re the kind of person who gets angry at films that dance just beyond your understanding, you’ll despise Tree of Life. It’ll make you feel stupid in front of your date. It’ll make you uncomfortable. When it’s over, you’ll get defensive. You’ll jeer and scoff. You’ll shake your head, grab said date and swagger out into the night, squinting around to make sure you’re not the only one who didn’t get it. And you won’t be. If you’re this person, the review ends here. Seriously. You’ll want to kill Terrence Malick.
With that out of the way, this film is kind of awesome. And I don’t say that because I “get it” while others don’t. To be honest, I don’t really get much of it either on this first pass. I just don’t feel overly threatened by a film that flits about on screen being deliberately coy.
Super brief synopsis: Waco, Texas, 1950s. Brad Pitt plays an overbearing and narcissistic father with a hairtrigger temper — his three kids live in constant fear, and his wife treads quietly. If this sounds cliche, it is.
But this film is visually stunning. (Full disclosure: I like Hubble imagery.) It’s ambitious in scope, even comically so. (Dinosaurs? Really? And wait — was that just a visual depiction of the end of the universe? Wow, Terrence.) It’s lovingly made, and despite being at times a deliberately Norman Rockwellesque period piece it feels very real — very, very real, almost like watching one’s own memories in high definition. It’s worth seeing just for the rich and textured performances within the family, the wholly immersive portrayal of growing up. Really growing up. From birth. I’ve never seen anything like it on film — if you want to feel like a baby again, see this movie. (And believe me, you do.)
There’s very little dialogue in this film, but it feels all the more real because of it. The central 1950s scenario — I can’t really call it a storyline — is lovingly done.
Sean Penn sleepwalks around in modern times, shiny buildings and all. He’s the grown-up version of one of Pitt’s kids from the 1950s. (I thought I had it down, which one of the kids he was — but as the film went on, I realized he might actually have been another of them. Your mileage may vary.)
This Penn angle is a waste. It raises more questions than it answers, and it’s probably to blame for a substantial fraction of the audience discontent I observed tonight. And the ending? Just weird, and over the top.
But Tree of Life is over the top. Completely, totally. Think Windows Media Player visualizations playing on screen. For multiple minutes. Think repeated Biblical quotations and God imagery. Think repeated shots of staircases, windows, windows, more windows. Sky, clouds, more Media Player. Whispered voiceovers. More media player. Volcanos.
The result is like a weird remake of 2001: A Space Odyssey that’s part Planet Earth, part Hubble 3D, and part The Wonder Years with a mean-ass dad.
Yes, it all feels a bit film school-ish: Grandiose themes, operatic chants, long pauses. But the Tree of Life is like jazz. It tiptoes around a melody, riffing on it, bounding off down tangential digressions with references twice and thrice removed. You’ll never hear that melody, but after a while you can deduce it from the sheer volume of riffing. You either like that sort of thing or you don’t.
I adore the way Malick doesn’t simply sketch out the father-child relationship with a catalytic scene or two — he fills it out completely with a kaleidoscopic torrent of memory slivers. It’s total dedication to storytelling, meticulously building a backstory in the way we as people actually experience one. There’s a lot more to be said here. There are theses to be written, smoky debates to be had. But I know better than to stake a claim after one viewing. Want my “theory” on Tree of Life? It’ll have to wait.
And this is a review, not a term paper, so I owe you a verdict.
If you’re still reading, see this film.
If you don’t get too hung up on the Sean Penn angle, if you can handle some heavy cosmic imagery, and if you can sit through a series of vignettes (thick with meaning yet still somehow inscrutable) without feeling belittled, it’s well worth seeing — and seeing again. One caveat: Unless you’re pretty sure your date is on board, you might do well to see it alone.
HAUS VERDICT: Hubble-scope film-school period eye-jazz that boasts an amazing depiction of childhood; a visually stunning meditation that you’ll find either masterful and moving or oppressive and meaningless. Maybe both.
MS- You unveiled this movie beautifully! Thank you!