942 The Tree of Life

[matrixschmatrix]

Is that not Nothing? I read about two sentences and then zoned out, so I assumed it was.

[Tommaso]

To be fair, I remain at the MOR shrug-level for the Tree of Life and while I like Melancholia a lot, it's not even in my Top Five for the year, and it's certainly no Antichrist.

Yes, because it's quite different from "Antichrist", much to my own surprise after reading some reviews and statements about "Melancholia" also dealing with/being an outlet for Trier's depression. "Antichrist", although much more shocking on a purely 'physical' level, also feels much more intimate and at the same time is less assured about what it wants to say (or it's a lot more open in the answers to the questions it raises). "Melancholia", in a way, answers its questions, although it doesn't hit you over the head with its answers either. But whereas "Antichrist", as beautiful as it often is, is also a very rough and disturbing film, the adjective that comes to my mind when I think of "Melancholia" is 'majestic', in the sense of von Trier being extremely assured about what he's doing. But "Melancholia" is one of the very rare cases where this self-assuredness doesn't ring hollow but allows for a deep immersion/empathy into what's happening on screen. In this respect, I think von Trier should have dedicated this film to Tarkovsky, not "Antichrist".

As to "Tree of Life", I hate to say it, but it's true: I have almost completely forgotten anything that happened in that film after the initial cosmogony sequence (which is impressive enough to remember it). Of course that could just be me, but probably it's not a good sign. On the other hand, I remember quite a few details of "Antichrist" even though I haven't watched it again since its initial theatrical run, despite owning the CC disc. I suppose very much the same will go for "Melancholia"; at least I feel still haunted by it two days after I saw it in the cinema. Curious, I've never been a von Trier fanboy, but both "Antichrist" and "Melancholia" are certainly the unrivalled number one films in their respective years for me.

[Mr. Ned]

As to "Tree of Life", I hate to say it, but it's true: I have almost completely forgotten anything that happened in that film after the initial cosmogony sequence (which is impressive enough to remember it). Of course that could just be me, but probably it's not a good sign.

At last, someone else who's willing to admit some shred of benumbment to The Tree of Life: a decent film to be sure, but otherwise entirely forgettable. I have no idea where Melancholia will end up on my end of the year list, but I imagine it will be at least more provocative than what amounted to a rather emotionally stunted, humdrum affair posing as a zeitgeist epic.

[hollyharry]

a rather emotionally stunted, humdrum affair posing as a zeitgeist epic.

I can't take any of this post seriously after this piece of writing. A "zeitgeist epic" is a construct that you (and other people) are imposing on the film, and then to have the audacity to criticize the film for "posing" as said imposed construct is the height of absurdity (also, I don't know how "zeitgeist" a film that takes place largely in the 50's can be anyway ; if it's trying to be zeitgeist, it has a funny way of going about it).

This thread for the past page or so has been an embarrassment, in general. Somebody called the line "a 2 and a half hour insurance commercial" a "brilliant quip" (or some such)? It's the laziest quip you could possibly state about The Tree Of Life. People on twitter were prepared to use it before the film even fucking premiered. It's infuriating, not just because that sort of "critique" completely ignores what the film does with editing and sound, but because it's really, aggressively anti-clever.

"..just pretty images..."

"...lack of coherent narrative..."

This is pure philistinism pretending to be self-evident fact.

This forum is better than this.

[knives]

Yeah, I can understand having problems with it on a philosophical level (it really is only a few steps above Pascal's wager in what it speaks to on religion), but the way it's circularly structured along with the usage of music is pretty great if not on the level of it's clear point of inspiration (Mirror). Being obnoxiously anti-Malick is just as irritating as those idiots who treat the film as Jesus. I'm not saying there aren't problems with the film, but it appears that many are reacting more to the fan reaction than the film itself.

[hollyharry]

Yeah, I can understand having problems with it on a philosophical level (it really is only a few steps above Pascal's wager in what it speaks to on religion), .

What does it speak to on religion?

[knives]

Well I figure the film is about 'god's silence' and why that isn't a negative. That's a simplified version of things, but all the same the more I think about the film the more I find that it just coddles to religion. It's better than the work of a fanatic, but as an argument for god let alone one I'm supposed to respect I find it lacking.

[matrixschmatrix]

(This is in the wrong thread, isn't it?)

As an argument about the existence or non-existence of God, I don't see how it's any less compelling than The Silence or Match Point or whatever- it translates an emotion-based impulse about what the world is like into a guess about what that means, and what the relationship of Creation or the Universe or whatever you want to call it to individual human beings is. I don't see why the expression of the movie is lessened just because you don't agree with its conclusions- it's certainly not didactic about it.

[Titus]

Somebody called the line "a 2 and a half hour insurance commercial" a "brilliant quip" (or some such)? It's the laziest quip you could possibly state about The Tree Of Life.

So lazy, in fact, that one doesn't even need to have seen the film to make it. I believe that "life insurance" line actually made it's first appearance here when the trailer of the film first surfaced.

[hollyharry]

Well I figure the film is about 'god's silence' and why that isn't a negative. That's a simplified version of things, but all the same the more I think about the film the more I find that it just coddles to religion. It's better than the work of a fanatic, but as an argument for god let alone one I'm supposed to respect I find it lacking.

I don't think it "coddles" to religion exactly, mainly because it doesn't seem clear that people know what religion it's supposedly supporting. I think many use the information that Malick is a Christian church-goer and I think it's a bit of a red herring. If the film has any ideology spiritually, it's probably Buddhism.

A teacher, like say , Alan Watts, always talked about being in the moment. That's what yoga, for instance, is about. It's not that it's good for you, it's that it's the one activity you do for the sake of it; something you do without any intended result. That, and a tenant of Buddhism is that everyone is one with the universe and all that has life, and any sense of individualism is an assertion of the ego (which is why the universe creation stuff and the dinosaur stuff isn't out of place; the point is that everything is essentially the same story. The story of the raptor is the story of the boy, etc., etc.). Incidentally, The New World is also Buddhist in some ways, particularly in it's ending. It doesn't view death as the end, but merely apart of the process of life, which is continuous and everlasting (hence water flowing, ships heading to sea, wind blowing in the trees inter-cut with her dying).

The film is fairly obviously (in the sense that it's stated) about the conflict between nature and grace, and I think Jack's journey is that he goes from someone completely disillusioned and overwhelmed by the world, to someone that sees beauty in the moment itself, and no longer feels engulfed by or separated from it. "God" is in everything, it's not separate from you (again, Buddhist concept). I don't see how this "coddles" to any sort of religion exactly (except Buddhism, if you consider it a religion in the western since). And this is not to say that what the film is "saying" is so incredibly deep or complex or something. I'm not sure how much intellectual complexity matters in poetry. I'm not an expert, but is Whitman's Leaves Of Grass praised for it's thematic depth? What strikes me about it is it's deep feeling and it's conveying of the beauty of the soul and the world (and, of course, America ) and it did so in a way that nobody had done before (and was controversial for it, I might add). I think that's enough.

[knives]

(This is in the wrong thread, isn't it?)

As an argument about the existence or non-existence of God, I don't see how it's any less compelling than The Silence or Match Point or whatever- it translates an emotion-based impulse about what the world is like into a guess about what that means, and what the relationship of Creation or the Universe or whatever you want to call it to individual human beings is. I don't see why the expression of the movie is lessened just because you don't agree with its conclusions- it's certainly not didactic about it.

I don't see how Match Point has anything to do with god, if we're talking Allen wouldn't Crimes and Misdemeanors make more sense. Anyways, the difference, to me, is that those films speak to the human relationship with the concept of god and examine religion's role with humanity at large while Tree of Life is more of an excuse for that silence. It takes it as fact that there is a god with the most attention being brought to the is or isn't it question being a Lovecraft-esque it's too big for us to understand thing. That's fine of course and a great work could and has been made from that, but Malick than excuses the silence with more hand waving. I do think the film is great, but it's great for a petty cause.

edit: I do agree that Malick is unorthodox and incorporates many different philosophies into his films, but ultimately it is a film about god and what I said above still applies whether that god is Christian, Buddhist (technically they have no god, but whatever), or even Cthulhu. It's still saying that a god exists and we are too small to understand it. Pascal wasn't a lesser philosopher for his wager and Tree of Life isn't a bad movie because of it's purpose, but that doesn't make it a particularly good or rather well thought out purpose.

[hollyharry]

Buddhist (technically they have no god, but whatever)

You're thinking of God in the western sense. When I said "God is in everything, it isn't separate from you", I didn't mean deity. I was using the term "God" in the same way that someone like Alan Watts uses it.

And where in the film does it explicitly state that "God exists"? The language of the film is that of questioning, not of affirmation.

[hollyharry]

And by the way, I am NOT saying that the film is explicitly Buddhist or anything. What I'm saying is that the movie is far more complicated theologically than a simple Western Judeo-Christian affirmation, so it's impossible for it to "coddle" to religion.

[knives]

See here though I think Malick pretty explicitly with the mother does say that god is a thing. Maybe not a concentrate, but I don't see it as being at all similar to the larger Buddhist conception of (for lack of a better term) Buddha mind. The mother is shown to be closer to the truth, and in his mixing of philosophies, more at one with the peace of god. All this goes into her maybe not by Malick's standards having a whole knowledge, but a fair conception of god as a force (I'm thinking of the pointing upward thing). I agree that it might not be a traditionally Judeo-Christian conception of god (actually I think it's probably closer to a Native American conception), but he does present god as some sort of force.

[hollyharry]

(I assume you're talking about the stuff at the end)

I think that stuff has more to do with the adult Jack reconciling the past with his present. It's an epiphany, and it's actually my least favorite segment of the work, but it's still effective at depicting a spiritual awakening of sorts.

Also, one should be careful about taking everything an individual character says in dialogue as gospel.

[knives]

That didn't enter my mind (it might be telling I totally forgot that portion until you mentioned it). I was thinking of a few scenes in the middle with the mother, the two most notable being her floating and her pointing up. Also I should probably note that I referring to any sort of spirituality here in the derogatory. It could even conceivably be a Buddhist one though I don't think that fits the film with it's physical representations of god and mercy (the scene where the boy considers killing his father). Malick's looking for an excuse for pain and finds it in his spirituality which I suppose makes the film an interesting exploration of Malick, but the point he seems to be making (basically finding a reason for why bad things happen and trying to excuse suffering as an important thing which is decidedly a christian way of thinking) is coddling to me.

It's fascinating to me how Malick is trying to cope with the bad that's gone on in his life particularly the suicide of his brother and that certainly makes the film compelling to me, but the way he copes to me also is incredibly petty. For all of his showing (you can't really call it talk) of how small we are which I think is a more interesting subject (though in that case I can just watch The thin Red Line again) he seems very concerned in this film to explain away why we suffer and why it's a good thing which as a philosophy I find petty. Still consider the movie great at least formally though. I just try not to think too much about the message.

[hollyharry]

The film is knotty spiritually, that's what's interesting about it. There is stuff that plays off Judeo-Christian iconography, but the film's trajectory isn't so simple to me.

On another note, it is telling how we posters have managed to take up the last 2 or 3 pages of a thread of a movie completely unrelated to The Tree Of Life all about it, especially for how supposedly "forgettable" it is.

[NABOB OF NOWHERE]

Somebody called the line "a 2 and a half hour insurance commercial" a "brilliant quip" (or some such)? It's the laziest quip you could possibly state about The Tree Of Life.

So lazy, in fact, that one doesn't even need to have seen the film to make it. I believe that "life insurance" line actually made it's first appearance here when the trailer of the film first surfaced.

Re Lazy. Like Bukowski said. "Sometimes you just have to piss in the sink"....or it might have been Joseph Campbell.
I said it about the trailer I'll say it again about the film and even add portentous 'mood board' to boot. At least I don't get to sue Malick I guess.

[stwrt]

Watching the Blu-Ray release, this plays like an art-house version of "Stand By Me".

Don't think I've seen another movie with so many extreme-close-ups of the actors - particularly of the kids. Apparently that's the reason for shooting it at 1:85 rather than widescreen.

[Mr Sausage]

I'm not sure how much intellectual complexity matters in poetry. I'm not an expert, but is Whitman's Leaves Of Grass praised for it's thematic depth?

It matters a lot. I don't know which group praises Whitman for what, but his thematic depth is considerable and despite the surface simplicity he's a complex and difficult poet. But...

What strikes me about it is it's deep feeling and it's conveying of the beauty of the soul and the world (and, of course, America ) and it did so in a way that nobody had done before (and was controversial for it, I might add). I think that's enough.

...there's the question of whether Malick is working through a rigorous set of philosophical and religious ideas or whether he is using them as the basic framework on which to construct a movie that gives you the precise emotional sense of those religious ideas---sublimity, grace, what have you. A religious film doesn't have to be peddling ideas, it can be peddling the emotions within those ideas, giving the audience the sense of what it's like to experience the state the ideas describe.

Whether the movie has succeeded or not seems controversial on this board.

[domino harvey]

Hard to believe people are having trouble taking the Tree of Life Branch Davidians seriously, what with their well-reasoned accusations of philistinism against those who fail to see the beauty in their chosen holy text. Yes, I know you think your Art Film can beat up our Art Film, but way to bring a machete to a Nerf fight with that particular lob!

[Tom Hagen]

the Tree of Life Branch Davidians

Well, the film was set in Waco.

[hollyharry]

Hard to believe people are having trouble taking the Tree of Life Branch Davidians seriously, what with their well-reasoned accusations of philistinism against those who fail to see the beauty in their chosen holy text. Yes, I know you think your Art Film can beat up our Art Film, but way to bring a machete to a Nerf fight with that particular lob!

I frankly don't give a shit if you like The Tree Of Life or not (also like the very clever way you try evade criticism by painting me as a fanatic), I just don't like lazy criticism. I'll take criticism that may be slightly uninformed (which we've all probably written or done) as long it's trying. "Lack of coherent narrative" is something Rex Reed could come up with while catatonic. Try harder.

Also, I haven't even seen Melancholia, and will probably love it consider that Dogville is close to my favorite film of the past decade. I guess both "Art" film can share PB&J sandwiches on my playground.

I'm not sure how much intellectual complexity matters in poetry. I'm not an expert, but is Whitman's Leaves Of Grass praised for it's thematic depth?

It matters a lot. I don't know which group praises Whitman for what, but his thematic depth is considerable and despite the surface simplicity he's a complex and difficult poet. But...

Thanks for replying! (I figured it would be probably be you that responded to that part). I'm just really learning about Whitman, to be honest. What I respond to in him is purely intuitive and am glad to have someone knows more in that particular discussion.

[knives]

Hard to believe people are having trouble taking the Tree of Life Branch Davidians seriously, what with their well-reasoned accusations of philistinism against those who fail to see the beauty in their chosen holy text. Yes, I know you think your Art Film can beat up our Art Film, but way to bring a machete to a Nerf fight with that particular lob!

As much as we disagree on Tree of Life dues where dues are due, the Davidians line is hilarious.

[NABOB OF NOWHERE]

I frankly don't give a shit if you like The Tree Of Life or not (also like the very clever way you try evade criticism by painting me as a fanatic), I just don't like lazy criticism.

Well it seems that you do give a shit otherwise why respond? Would you be so vehement in your denunciation of laziness if someone had said 'A died in the wool masterpiece.. Malick is a genius"? I think not.