The Tree of Life
During my viewing of The Tree of Life, at least 6 people walked out of the theater, mostly during the 20+ minute montage featuring the birth of life on our the planet. At this point, the film had been less a film and more a collection of whisperings and images that teetered between transcendent and annoying. The theater was mostly packed with Malick fans, who were all either with it, or determined to stay with it (as a side note, it seems that everyone I meet now is the biggest Terrence Malick fan. I know he had fans before, but this movie seems to have galvanized them. At the bar where I work the other day, I heard an older gentleman relating a brief history of what we all know about the guy - that he makes one movie every 9 years or so - to a younger girl. News Flash – when the filmmaker in question is the biggest thing at Cannes, when his movie is playing every half-hour at the Arclight, and when Brad Pitt is starring in his film, you can’t claim him like you’re talking about some obscure band you saw at The Smell. Snooki will probably see this movie and have an opinion about it.) But I chuckled a little when those few people walked out, because I imagine that Terrence Malick wouldn’t have minded that much. Even as I was holding my breath to see whether or not I liked the movie as a whole, what I appreciated was that I was at the mercy of an artist who had enough vision, clout, and bombast to produce such an incredible undertaking, to distribute it to theaters as accessible as the Arclight, and then to hold us captive to his vision for 2 hours. Usually, when I go to a movie and don’t like it, it’s because the film, in trying too hard to capture my love (and the love of millions like me), has bent itself into something I don’t like at all. In this case, I felt as if the filmmaker was saying, wholeheartedly, that this is what he wanted to make and he could honestly care less whether or not I wanted to leave. And that made me love him.
And, while I have to say the Birth of Life portion went on too long for my taste, it somehow primed me for the rest of the film, whose snapshot story-telling technique seemed downright linear compared to the first two sections of the movie. The Tree of Life seems to be Malick’s attempt to put the events of human history in their proper context. With the juxtaposition of the history of planet Earth against what seems to be maybe 6 months in the life of a little boy, the events in the life of the boy become, surprisingly, more cataclysmic. Each emotion is a tidal wave; each new realization carries with it too much force.
The heightened sensual quality of the images flooding the screen was effective in opening me up to the story. Maybe it’s because I was so desperate for some story, any story; or maybe it’s because it’s difficult not to feel emotion when you see shots of volcanoes and oceans so majestic, you feel simultaneously proud to live on planet Earth, and ashamed to reside in a grubby one-bedroom in Silverlake. Either way, where normally, I know that I would maintain a certain level of distance between myself and the characters until the filmmaker had somehow aligned my sympathies with them, in this instance, I felt immediately open to them. And because the story didn’t move through traditional conflict and resolution structure, but rather unfolded through images I’m guessing were assembled in editing, my emotions crested throughout. I found myself crying at the end, through the credits and into the lobby. This was a necessary release after being denied the normal catharsis through tragic event and resolution structure, and instead being persistently bombarded with images of unthinkable beauty.
That said, what will stay with me, months and years from now, will be the performances of the two boys. For me, the film’s greatest gift was allowing me to spend time in their world. Malick’s understanding of childhood seems to me to be spot-on: the omnipresence of parental influence, the weight of small tragedies, the texture of joyful (or painful) personal experiences that are rarely repeated or recaptured, if ever, later in life. In terms of a storyteller who is up to the task of presenting childhood as it is, and not how we as adults might remember or project it, Malick is the best man for the job, by a long shot. I don’t think I’ll ever, ever forget the images of two boys joyfully out-limping each other through a parking lot and then, a moment later, seeing a man with a real disability, and melting into a sober realization of the horrors that await them in adulthood. Or the picture of one boy holding out a lamp with the bulb unscrewed and daring his brother to stick a wire hanger in there, and the younger brother, both afraid and trusting, doing it. I’ll remember these moments, as I remember a precious few from my own from early life, because they have all of the innocence of childhood and the threat of its passage contained within them. And That, despite the Our Father allegories, and Birth of Life montages, and a too-long sequence with a Sean Penn and a bunch of people milling around on a beach, is at the heart of this film. And Terrence Malick, I’m grateful for it.
Notes
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