Terrance Malick's "The Tree of Life"

[Shep]

Anyone else looking forward to this? Sure it looks like the usual Terrance Malick thing (shots of nature/poetry), but I have to say I've enjoyed pretty much everything the writer/director has ever done ("Badlands" and "Thin Red Line" especially are favorite films of mine).

[Captain Hygiene]

I'm pretty curious about it. I'd probably go see it based on the title and director alone, but what little I know of the plot intrigues me.

[Mighty Jack]

I'm a film freak, 'course I'll see it. Trailer looks interesting.

[Captain Hygiene]

Bumpin' the thread 'cause I watched the movie

My initial thoughts are mostly positive, with a few reservations. It's a beautiful film (with the exception of a cheesy few seconds early on), and it was well-acted and engaging. There were a few times where I felt the timing was off, mostly with scenes wandering on a bit too long, but also the occasional sequence feeling a bit too rushed. The story's non-linear presentation was mostly reasonable, but there were a couple of points that I still found confusing (though not necessarily integral to the film as a whole). I also thought the ending was somewhat lacking, being both fairly abrupt and open.

It's one of those films that you feel like what you're seeing is the completely personal vision of a single person. Even if I didn't like it, I'd still respect it just from that perspective. That also makes it more difficult to critique from the perspective of enjoyment compared to more typical mainstream films, as it feels like Malick has made and released the film more as a personal statement than for commercial entertainment. That's where my biggest question comes in - the film feels like it's making some grand observation about life, but I think the actual storyline is pretty simple and straightforward. It's a good coming-of-age story, but I don't really feel like it was anything groundbreaking. It's just couched differently and contrasted with a presentation on the evolution of life on Earth. It feels like an epic statement, but thinking back, I'm just not sure how much was actually there and how much was just in the presentation. I definitely need to digest it for a while and rewatch it again.

In spite of my problems, I think it's definitely worth watching. Whether or not everything works, it's just an interesting film.

[mummifiedstalin]

I haven't seen it, but I'd like to.

A friend of mine, whose opinion I really respect, said two things that really sparked my interest:

1) The movie works best if you think of it as a visual poem, where the point isn't really the "overall" meaning (or "epic statement," as Hygeine said), but one that works much better if you really pay attention to how various scenes and images play off of one another in the moment. So the cosmic stuff contrasts with Job which contrasts with the brother's death at 19. Each talks about promising beginnings and unfortunate ends (or ways that people forget those beginnings) in different ways.

2) The second was that general theme of lost opportunities and lost innocence, of how initial, youthful promise always looks different from different perspectives. The movie (he says, again I haven't seen it) is all about lost chances. So the dinosaur bit is a moment of pity in the midst of something tragic: i.e., you know the dinos are going to die out, and the "cosmic" context insists that. But the moment of pity in that last scene also suggests a kind of empathy (maybe even elegy) for the promise that always happens at the beginning of "life."

The final scene, then, would be as much about recapturing that as it is about how impossible that would actually be (since the last scene is, literally, impossible).

He made a good case for that and went through the film step-by-step (and sometimes scene by scene)...but he has a memory for that kind of thing, which I don't.

[Shep]

A really interesting fim going experience. I felt like I was in a dreamlike state while the film drifted in and out of my head, Malick's images/poetry mixing with my own thoughts. Lost myself in a way I haven't at the movies for quite a long time.

Quick thoughts: Brad Pitt is quite good as the father. Sometimes I do miss the old Terry Malick with the quirky dialogue who wrote "Pocket Money," "Badlands" and "Days of Heaven."

Still, quite an achievement.

[Mighty Jack]

Bouncing this because I just watched it and am curious if anyone else has seen it since this thread was first posted, and what you thought.

I tend to agree with what CH said. The movie does present itself as this epic, grand scale meaning of life kind of thing... but when I think of it. At it's core, it's actually pretty simple. It's basically about a boy and his issues with his father.

That's not to say I disliked it. I thought it was breathtakingly beautiful. The creation of the universe seems oddly placed, but it was one of the most poetic, exhilarating moments I've ever seen in a film.

While it does have that whispered inner monologue thing (which has always kind of bugged me with Malick - because it comes off pretentious and seems more about Terrence expounding on his own views, rather than being a distinct voice from an individual character). Thankfully it's not overdone -as was in New World- and he allows the visuals to take center stage.

It was an odd viewing experience because I'd bounce back and forth between thinking that I was watching the greatest movie ever made, and at other times it lost me because I felt it meandered and belaboured points.

It was definitely a one of a kind film -- cinema in its purest form.