Impressionistic...elliptical...oracular...profound. Terrence Malik's newest cosmological drama, "The Tree of Life," has been given many adjectives, and the respective acclaimed director of "Days of Heaven," "Bad Lands," and the "New World," who has remained notably reclusive throughout his years, took home an award for it at the Cannes Film Festival.
However, the real question that remains is: can the fast-paced, HD-obsessed culture of today stomach this silver screen rendition of Malick's inner consciousness, an ethereal and evanescent, memory-filled one at that? If you enjoy BBC's Planet Earth, Stephen Hawking specials on the "Big Bang," or films with the religious, metaphysical aura of an Ingmar Bergman picture, then the answer is yes. Otherwise, see it at your own risk.
Undoubtedly, "Tree of Life" is a visual wonder, filled with breathtaking views of all kinds: celestial stars and supernovas, the alignment of planets, eruptions of fiery lava, bubbling pools of gaseous water, the first traces of unicellular life, microscopic larvae, dinosaurs, breaking waves, subterranean fissures, pristine canyons, mountain ranges, beaches, pock-marked landscapes, and waterfalls, triassic riverbeds, amoebas, primordial hammerheads and jellyfish, dappled sunlight that filters through canopies of verdurous tree leaves, rolling meadows, spiraling cathedrals, labyrinth-filled energy plants, and the list goes on. Malick tries to illustrate the grand schema of everything, linking human beings and their place and struggle in the universe with that of every other form of life, and he definitely deserves kudos for that-- as does he for his lush, dreamlike montage of fleeting childhood memories (boys climbing trees, playing baseball, swimming in the river, etc.). However, it's ultimately the lack of thoroughly concretized characters and settings (as well as the film's occasionally choppy editing) that prevents this movie from reaching its full potential.
The story follows Jack O'Brian (Sean Penn), a ruminative lost soul in the postmodern world, who, like many of us, pines for the innocence of his youth. Still grief-stricken by the loss of his brother, who died at 19, Jack flashes back to his own "Garden of Eden": the early pre-Eisenhower days of the 1950s when he and his two brothers, R.L. and Steve, were growing up in Waco, Texas. His loving, but authoritative father (Brad Pitt) was a factory owner, his soft-hearted and nurturing mother (Jessica Chastain) was a typical, Baby Boom-era housewife, and he and brothers were just normal kids: adventurous, naive, and carefree. However, as the years passed and Jack began to witness the harsh realities of the world, the blissfulness of his childhood slowly began to disappear.
The basic message of the film that Malick is trying to deliver with poetic sentimentality is that the world is divided into two categories: "grace" and "nature." Grace is loving, unselfish, and divine, and nature is, in the words of Thomas Hobbes, "nasty, brutish, and short." Adhering to conventional western views, Malick represents Mrs. O'Brian as the quintessential model of grace and Mr. O'Brian as a more complicated model of nature. The former tells her boys that "unless you love, your life will pass you by." The latter tells his boys that "it takes fierce will to get ahead in this world," and if you want to get ahead in this world, "you can't be too good." Although Mr. O'Brian, an avid church organist on the side, is certainly sympathetic in his role as the industrious, perseverant father who forgoes his artistic passions to feed his family, the movie never really fully explores his character, and the same is the case with Jack and Mrs. O'Brian.
"Tree of Life," which utilizes whispery, disembodied voice-overs (channeling the deep and reflective inner thoughts of the characters), swiveling and swirling, angular views, and a mixture of shots-- some extremely close-up and others extraordinarily expansive (such as when we view the birth of the universe, e.g.), is a beautiful arrangement of Malick's personal thoughts and memories, but there's little cohesion to them. As an experimental film, it's great for small theaters and gallery IMAX studios. For the traditional audience, though, it simply hasn't reached its full growth. That being said, I give it a 6.5/10.
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