942 The Tree of Life

[matrixschmatrix]

I've just seen this, and I've never seen a Malick movie before- I was tremendously moved, enough so that as much as I loved this movie I don't think I can watch it again for quite a while. I think it's going to be hard for me to put an argument together about it- though I'm not even close to a child of the 50s, a lot of the emotional and spiritual notes the movie hit were so resonant for me that I kept getting enraged on the movie's behalf whenever anyone in the theater made a sound, so while I can say 'it all coalesced and nothing seemed overly maudlin' it's really hard for me to pull out of my life experiences and see this movie in any way critically.

I can at least say that it's possible to fall in love with this for reasons other than Malick fanboyism or the sort of "expectations so heightened that you like it no matter what" thing.

[John Cope]

Excellent roundtable over at Cinema Scope.

[Kellen]

Uwe Boll says Tree Of Life is a piece of shit.

[domino harvey]

He makes a few valid arguments, against all odds

[MyNameCriterionForum]

Uwe Boll says Tree Of Life is a piece of shit.

Didn't I read recently that Malick got in a fight with a producer years ago defending his wife's honor? Perhaps Boll has finally found the man who will stand up to his Boll-ying.

[Grand Illusion]

While offering no particular insight as someone that actually makes films, Boll is right that Sean Penn is "nothing" in the film and that the

Spoiler

beach scene

is "fucking disastrous."

[matrixschmatrix]

I really strongly disagree with that-

Spoiler

I think a lot of the cosmological/God's eye point of view of the movie is created by the sense of transcending time, and that hopping from place to place within time- and creating a space in which time has collapsed, and death is overcome is absolutely fucking key to what is going on.

[Foam]

It's surprising how few responses I've come across that follow up with any rigor whatsoever on The Bible's status as probably the film's most revealing intertext. I'm going to wait until I have this on Blu to make my argument in detail, because it deserves a closer reading than I can give it atm, but for now I'd just suggest that the film's seemingly non-traditional structure becomes more intelligible when viewed as a kind of disordered Complaint-Psalm-meets-Creation-Hymn, what with the shared elements: address of God, listing of his great works (in this case, creation), description of suffering, cursing of the responsible parties, protestation of innocence/admission of guilt, request for assistance, faith in God's receipt, anticipation of response, and a song of thanksgiving. Anyway, even if this proposed reading ends up being full of it, I don't anticipate this ever being anything less than my favorite Malick. I was awestruck from beginning to end, twice over.

Edit: Also the use of this was yay.

[matrixschmatrix]

I think it's hard to deny that Christianity is a huge, huge part of the movie- my girlfriend's reaction to it was as an elaboration of a Requiem Mass, which also shares a lot of the elements you mention, and helps explain both the musical choices and the overall sense of musicality the movie achieves.

I think part of why I reacted so strongly is that it's a movie that addresses the questions of theodicy without ever being glib or pretending that there is an easy or clear answer, while still showing a faith that an answer is possible. It also reminded me of Solaris, in that one of the central questions is whether God (and by analogy, I think, both the mother and father characters) is essentially knowable or forever removed and alien, and the very Tarkovsky sense that there's almost no distinction between past and present and real and unreal.

It's honestly hard for me to understand the criticism that the Penn scenes don't belong, they and the beach scene in particularly seemed singularly vital to the construction of the movie.

[Tommaso]

I've only watched the film one time a few days ago, and will certainly need to see it again to come to terms with it, but my first reaction to its 'religious' position was that the film is not anti-Christian or 'anti-God' at all, rather on the contrary. Like in the book of Job, the misery of human beings is shown as 'real' but at the same time as 'covered' by something greater, i.e. the work and presence of a God whose intentions are unknowable but ultimately beneficial. This 'presence', it seems, is in nature and by extension, in the history of the universe (which represents 'grace' as opposed to the human concept of 'nature'), and in which death is just a part of a larger process. Some German reviewer even compared Malick's approach to Goethe in having this all-encompassing and ultimately 'celebratory' attitude...

My main complaint is that Malick hammers this in far too obviously. I'm surprised that there seem to be few people here who found the voice-over comments as annoying as I did. Lots of 'keywords' all the time making sure that we ask the right questions and come to the right conclusions (doesn't seem to have worked when I read the very different views here, but that's another point). That's indeed telling and not showing. The film often felt like a treatise to me, and not like something that allows us to remain in a state of ambivalence regarding its 'philosophical' points. It's extremely beautiful, especially in the creation sequences, and it has to be if Malick wants to make the point that I think he wants to make. But as for engaging me with these very fundamental issues, give me von Trier's "Antichrist" over it any time (and don't even begin to mention Tarkovsky, please...)

[knives]

It probably helps immensely that I can never hear the voice overs.

[Kellen]

It probably helps immensely that I can never hear the voice overs.

Same here, I was wondering if it was just the sound of the local theater I was at but a couple of people I've talked to said it was a bit hard to hear some of it.

[sidehacker]

A Malick film without the voiceover just seems so wrong. I heard it loud and clear, personally.

[Tom Hagen]

I need to sit down for an hour and write about what I think is going on here philosophically.

[Jeff]

Matt Zoller Seitz does his best to explain in this nifty Tree of Life primer.

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

My main complaint is that Malick hammers this in far too obviously. I'm surprised that there seem to be few people here who found the voice-over comments as annoying as I did.

I also could have done without the voice-overs - especially during the cosmic sequences. It spoiled the natural beauty of the film for me on far too many occasions. It felt like a Christian tone poem often enough already. One thing that Domino mentioned here really stuck with me and that was his indifference. I understand this to mean the constantly pretty stream of images that strive to make an impression but don't stick to one. Everything seemed designed to be an Anthropologie catalog as philosophy textbook. It felt aimless at times especially during anything set in Texas. I yearned for more of the cosmic commentary after awhile. I was able to connect with the film and start to admire it, though. That pretty stream ended up being too much for its own good so excuse me if I seem too dismissive. It was a great cinema experience and one that I will gladly return to. I just wanted to mention it because now that I've seen the film, the more tha tcriticism of it here makes sense and deserves comment. Otherwise, I was incredibly impressed. The soundtrack was wonderful and I hope that the sound designers/mixers get a lot of recognition during awards time. It was quite a labor of love and deserves as much attention as any other Malick film.

[knives]

A Malick film without the voiceover just seems so wrong. I heard it loud and clear, personally.

Well I should have said it sounded like white noise. For the most part I could hear, but not understand. That said he seemed to use it a lot less here supplementing it for the music. Actually when I think about it the film is as based around music even to a structural point as it is those religious questions.

[Roger Ryan]

...It's honestly hard for me to understand the criticism that the Penn scenes don't belong, they and the beach scene in particularly seemed singularly vital to the construction of the movie.

Although Matt Zoller Seitz states that this was not a problem for him, I question why Malick chose Sean Penn to play the older Jack. In his late 40s when the film was shot, Penn is simply the wrong age to play the modern-day interpretation of a character who came of age in the 50s/early-60s (I was willing to believe the "modern" scenes were taking place ten to fifteen years ago until Malick specifically shows a flatscreen TV mounted to the wall in Jack's home). Penn actually looks younger than he does made up as Joe Wilson in FAIR GAME. Would it have been unreasonable to cast an actor in his 60s to play the modern-day Jack? Malick offers so little to connect the adult Jack to the film's main action that I am beginning to wonder if Sean Penn is playing a different "Jack" altogether, one that actually isn't related to the family he may or may not be daydreaming about.

[rs98762001]

I like Soller Zeitz's comparison of ToL to Terence Davies' similarly autobiographical films. For all I know the connection has already been made, but the father figures in Distant Voices and Tree of Life certainly share some traits, although Pitt's character is ultimately more redeemable.

[matrixschmatrix]

Although Matt Zoller Seitz states that this was not a problem for him, I question why Malick chose Sean Penn to play the older Jack. In his late 40s when the film was shot, Penn is simply the wrong age to play the modern-day interpretation of a character who came of age in the 50s/early-60s (I was willing to believe the "modern" scenes were taking place ten to fifteen years ago until Malick specifically shows a flatscreen TV mounted to the wall in Jack's home). Penn actually looks younger than he does made up as Joe Wilson in FAIR GAME. Would it have been unreasonable to cast an actor in his 60s to play the modern-day Jack? Malick offers so little to connect the adult Jack to the film's main action that I am beginning to wonder if Sean Penn is playing a different "Jack" altogether, one that actually isn't related to the family he may or may not be daydreaming about.

I don't think Malick wanted to be tied down that concretely to a specific timespan- Penn seemed to be inhabiting an indistinct future as much as the present, all clean lines and minimalism, and the childhood scenes seemed largely to take place in an equally indistinct past (with the exception of the DDT truck, which seemed off to me, I don't remember a lot of big obvious signifiers for the times beyond the general impression of haircuts and clothes) The autobiographical elements are obviously strong, but I to me the movie tried to keep things loose enough that you couldn't necessarily tell which parts were set concretely in time and which were in someone's head- as I said before, I think one of the intentions of the movie is to collapse time, which moves the audience more towards a Gods-eye view.

If nothing else, I thought it as likely that the future we see was a flash forward as it was that the past was a flashback. If the movie has a temporal anchor, it's

Spoiler

the death we see in the beginning. To me, everything else in the movie is relatively indistinct, and circles around that time, like Slaughterhouse Five does around WWII.

[Roger Ryan]

I understand what you're getting at, but Malick seems particular about setting the childhood scenes in a given time (automobiles, style of dress, etc.), the brief scenes that take place about ten years later (again, the home, dress and cars seem to match late 60s/early 70s) and, then again, the adult Jack is shown circa 2008. If the art direction resembled what Terry Gilliam did with BRAZIL (which was to make the time and place impossible to determine since the events depicted could literally take place at any time in the 20th century or earlier/later), then I'd agree that Malick wanted to show that these events have a timelessness to them. TREE OF LIFE does this anyway, but the childhood scenes come through very strongly and are very effective at showing the character of young Jack being formed whereas the connection between this history and the crises that the adult Jack is going through is very tenuous. To make this connection even more tenuous by deliberately showing the adult Jack to be an age we wouldn't expect him to be circa 2008 weakens the film in my opinion.

[matrixschmatrix]

Except the event you refer to actually happens about ten years after the main childhood scenes take place.

I realize that- to me all the childhood scenes seem like flashbacks colored by that event, and all the adult scenes seem like flashforwards colored by it; the event, to me, is the one real and inescapable thing in the movie.

I understand what you're getting at, but Malick seems particular about setting the childhood scenes in a given time (automobiles, style of dress, etc.), the brief scenes that take place about ten years later (again, the home, dress and cars seem to match late 60s/early 70s) and, then again, the adult Jack is shown circa 2008. If the art direction resembled what Terry Gilliam did with BRAZIL (which was to make the time and place impossible to determine since the events depicted could literally take place at any time in the 20th century or earlier/later), then I'd agree that Malick wanted to show that these events have a timelessness to them. TREE OF LIFE does this anyway, but the childhood scenes come through very strongly and are very effective at showing the character of young Jack being formed whereas the connection between this history and the crises that the adult Jack is going through is very tenuous. To make this connection even more tenuous by deliberately showing the adult Jack to be an age we wouldn't expect him to be circa 2008 weakens the film in my opinion.

To some degree, this strengthens my point- the only event that has a clear and direct connection to Jack's life as an adult is the one I was talking about. It, and the sense of emotional remove and coldness

Spoiler

which echoes the part where he is behaving badly as a child, and can only feel reconnected to God or his mother or whatever through the grace his brother shows

are really all that the adult scenes are about- it's super impressionistic, and the blurriness of time and of age not quite matching up feels totally appropriate to me. It's not any more concretely connected to the main narrative than the scenes of creation or of the heat-dead lifeless future Earth are, and to me they all work towards the feeling of all time occurring at once.

[Roger Ryan]

Except the event you refer to actually happens about ten years after the main childhood scenes take place.

I realize that- to me all the childhood scenes seem like flashbacks colored by that event, and all the adult scenes seem like flashforwards colored by it; the event, to me, is the one real and inescapable thing in the movie.

Yes, I edited that line out of my response because I re-read your previous post and realized I had misunderstood what you were saying the first time through. I agree with you completely on this which is why I believe Malick opens the film with the event in question.

I guess my feeling is that the childhood scenes do seem pretty concrete and gel together beautifully despite many ellipses and even surreal moments. There's just enough missing from them to allow the viewer to fill in the gaps with their own emotional responses. The presentation also strongly elicits the feeling that they are indeed memories being filtered through a certain randomness. The "flash-forwards", on the other hand, seem to be missing too much; the viewer must provide all the narrative. What is there is some clunky symbolism (the adult Jack chasing the young Jack, for example). I would be more willing to buy into these surreal moments if the modern-day scenes had the same emotional heft as the childhood scenes.

Anyway, I feel like I'm going around in circles here. I'm pleased others found a good balance throughout the film and I'm happy to have seen something I consider 75% of a masterwork.

[Finch]

We just got back from Tree of Life: the ending (more specifically the beach reunion scene with its new age overtones) is dreadful & uncharacteristically sentimental for Malick, and the modern day scenes with Sean Penn left me indifferent, but the creation scenes and the bulk of the movie set in 50's Waco were brilliant and often breathtakingly beautiful. Looking forward to revisit the film on Blu in the autumn.

[jwd5275]

Just saw it two days ago too. I found it amazing

I had no problems with the beach scene. I keep seeing new age-y thrown about in regards to it, however it strikes me that Malick's vision through the film is quite orthodoxly religious, which may make many people dismiss it a new age mumbo-jumbo because they find that uncomfortable. It is hardly a coincidence that the whole scene plays out to an Agnus Dei by Berlioz...