Many film critics hailed Terrence
Malick’s ambitious fifth feature, The Tree of Life, as a masterpiece at
Cannes, where it won the Palme D’Or. But the film was highly divisive since its
first screening, leading to a major backlash. When audiences got a hold of it,
there was very little fence sitting with people either loving it or hating it.
It is a film that has been endlessly argued over, in terms of both its quality
and its meaning. It is also a film that is particularly hard to be objective
about. Your tolerance or intolerance of it will ultimately act as a reflection
on how and why you love cinema.
There is very little that can be said definitively about The
Tree of Life, and any pieces written on the film may be more telling of the
interests of the writer as opposed to the qualities of the film. Terrence
Malick presents a clear dichotomy between “the way of nature and the way of
grace” in the first line of the film, but from there on the film is left
remarkably open to interpretation. Forgetting any pretence at objectivity then,
for me, The Tree of Life is really about two different things, one
massive and wide-ranging and the other, in comparison, highly specific. It is
about life, the universe and everything, but also it is about Jack’s (Hunter
McCracken) maturation from childhood to adulthood via puberty. The former
encompasses a huge amount, from the place of human beings in the world to an
examination of the need for compassion in spite of a fiercely natural world. We
move from parents grieving over the death of a son (a hint of the specific to
come) to the creation of the world, the beginning of life on earth and finally
the joy of reproduction. The family is seen in a highly positive light, a
cocoon against the ruthless competition that remains prevalent in many guises
throughout the earth’s lifespan – the grace of the family versus the brutal
realities of nature. It suggests the rather insignificant place that humans
hold in the grand scheme of things, but gives hope. The human way of life may
be meaningless, but the little things are what matters. It is not an original
message, in fact it may seem rather conservative but this ceases to matter
since the film’s aesthetics are entirely unique (to Malick’s cinema at least)
and absolutely breathtaking. These preoccupations allow for a film that is
majestic, beautiful and really rather moving. In a sense, it is Malick’s
masterpiece.
With the birth of Jack, the film
becomes more specific, less meta-physical, though the bridge between the birth
of the universe and the birth of Jack is surprisingly seamless. The film now
meditates on the act of growing up, from difficulties with parents to a
burgeoning sexuality to the awareness and acceptance of difference. Here also,
in the figures of Jack’s parents (Jessica Chastain and Brad Pitt), we see how
the world works and the grace-nature dichotomy comes to fruition. The family
becomes less a cocoon than a synecdoche of the world – full of dissatisfaction
and rivalry, but also friendship and love. With this, the film successfully
comes full circle, its two strains – the universal and the familial – coming
together under the same themes, presented big and small.
However, having said all of this,
the film’s greatest achievement is its lyricism. The Tree of Life is a
visual and poetic film, which succeeds primarily thanks to the sheer beauty of
its images, their marriage with music and the meaning through montage. The
brilliance of The Tree of Life is not accurately expressed through its
plot, or through an analysis of its themes – the above cannot take in the sombre
modern-day scenes with the older Jack (Sean Penn), as interesting as it is, or
the admittedly awkward impressionistic ending. What makes the film so powerful
is that, by watching it, you find out something about yourself based on your
reaction to what happens onscreen, whether you laugh out loud or get a lump in
the throat. This may sound crude (and it is), but The Tree of Life is a
film that can stun and move you while driving your best friend out of their
mind with boredom. The Tree of Life is not as much a challenge to some
people as it is for others, and working out why it worked or didn’t work for
you might just tell you something about how you watch films and, maybe, how you
see life.
The Tree of Life is
a meditation, rather than a story. As a result, it is a unique and fascinating
film that rewards multiple viewing. It is a film that is unashamedly,
gloriously arty, if not particularly profound then remarkably beautiful and a
fascinating example of the expressive potential of the language of cinema. Malick's images are beautiful, especially when considered alongside the editing and the brilliant music chosen to accompany them. There is another thing that is fresh and brilliant about The Tree of Life
that has not really been touched on. It is a film about life and love and grace
and nature made with ambition and an eye for beauty, but it is also extremely
brave. Not politically brave, but artistically brave because it lays itself
bare, dares you to laugh and succeeds in making you see and think about the
world in ways that you never have before, all by virtue of one of the film’s
most powerful attributes: its fearless honesty.
See the original, inaccurate review from the film's release in 2011 as an indication how one's opinion can change here.
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