Poetry in motion picture

Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life is a bold and ambitious film about themes that are as heavy as they can get: Life and Death, Grace and Nature, God and Science. The characters  a small Midwestern family in 1950s America  hardly talk, and there is barely a plot to map them out, but they are palpable from start to finish. You feel them as you soak up the images, and how satisfying it is to just feel a film instead of trying to understand it.

The film opens with a passage from the Book of Job, the story of a man who questions his faith, which makes sense because The Tree of Life is the story of Jack O’Brien (J.O.B.), a man who questions his faith. The passage also talks about the origins of the universe, and this is also clearly manifested in the film. Jack loses a brother at a young age, and the experiences of his youth lead to a midlife crisis in adulthood. All these profound themes are there, but they are spoken louder in images than in words. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then this film is a deluge of language.   

Most of the Blu-ray movies I’ve seen were loaded with special effects, and this could be a reason why I was so impressed with The Tree of Life: It struck me as the perfect Blu-ray film because it’s not loaded with special effects. There are some, but what really takes advantage of the clarity of Blu-ray is what is obviously Malick’s forte as a filmmaker: the photography of life. In order to love this film, you must love cinematography, which I do with a passion; and describing it here is an exercise in superlative abuse: it is stunning, breathtaking, spellbinding, and awe-inspiring. Every frame is a masterpiece  and in fact the movie poster is a collage of stills. 

Some critics claim it’s more slideshow than movie, and perhaps they’re right, but ironically this is the reason why I was so refreshed by it. I’ve always wanted to experience the enlightenment of a yoga meditation, but never had the patience for it. I had the patience to watch this film, and it seemed to accomplish the same thing in a much more visually entertaining way. After watching it I not only felt like I had a deeper understanding of life, I also realized how tired I was of following complicated plots, of dissecting characters and taking tedious stock of nuances and deciphering hidden messages and meanings. I love all these things and will continue to do so, but how wonderful it was to simply sit back and enjoy the view. It was like sitting on a beach, not thinking too hard for a couple hours, and simply absorbing what’s in front of you. Before I knew it, my soul was full.  

Every frame is a masterpiece — and in fact the movie poster is a collage of stills

There are some pretty poetically arresting images in this film, many of them quite original and exhibited in sequences that constantly surprise, thanks to some masterful editing. Yes, there are the Malick standards  hands grazing through tall blades of green grass, shards of light raining through tree branches, etc.; and there are obvious echoes of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and sequences I could have sworn I saw at a Pink Floyd concert  but I have never seen the aftermath of a volcano eruption quite like this one, with the last few giant bubbles from the remains of lava flow (credit 2001 special effects man Doug Trumbull). This might be the Blu-ray talking again, but the human images are so up-close and personal you can see fingernail dirt and saliva stretching between lips; you can almost smell a newborn baby’s breath. All this reality yet most of the film still feels like a memory of Jack O’Brien’s upbringing. 

The ‘50s seems such a stylish and photogenic era, and production designer Jack Fisk does a magnificent job of recreating that minimalist aesthetic, particularly in the interiors of the family house, which is outfitted with lots of wood and olive walls and floors, gorgeous wraparound wall-to-ceiling living room windows facing a sloping green garden shaded by weeping willows, skinny-legged chairs and tables, and a brick-column central fireplace. Some of the accents, like the U.F.O.-shaped dining table chandelier, are retrospectively cool. The house contrasts nicely with the modern home of the grown-up Jack O’Brien played by Sean Penn, and the neighborhood is immaculately verdant and innocent, with streets lined with some of the most dramatically beautiful oak trees I’ve ever seen on film.   

There will be no real acting accolades for this one, but that doesn’t mean Malick doesn’t do a splendid job directing performances. I have always admired Brad Pitt as an actor, particularly since he made his bones in Terry Gilliam’s 12 Monkeys, and despite his minimal lines of dialogue here, he still manages to convince us of his role as a disciplinarian father, with his stiff-jawed and stern discretion in family leadership. In general I still prefer Sean Penn as an actor, but his role here is too stifled to merit any praise. 

There is a saying in Hollywood that the most difficult actors to direct are children and animals, and in this film Malick does a remarkable job of both. Watch the scenes where the couple is raising their first-born son as a toddler; the child is utterly believable as their own in both happy moments and sad  this is extremely difficult to accomplish. He seems perfectly natural and honest in his interaction with his mother and brother, the way he looks at and regards his baby brother with thoughtfulness, or the way he gets angry with him. You forget that none of these people are actually related. Or are they? I imagine it takes great time, effort, and film stock for a director to capture these kinds of magical human moments.

I mentioned animals, I meant insects. How do you direct a butterfly without the help of CGI? How do you make it play with the lead actress, almost flirt with her as she caresses its wings on the grass? You wait for the moment, discover the magic, and capture the scene; and only a voracious shootist like Malick has both the patience and appetite to do that. He deserves a Best Director nomination. 

 What about Best Film? Is it the best film of the year? Definitely not. Why? Because to achieve that kind of appreciation, a film must proportionately excel in all its elements, and in this case cinematography trumps everything else. This is perhaps the reason why none of Malick’s films have achieved the same kind of popular recognition as, say, Scorsese’s or Spielberg’s films  and, come to think of it, the reason why Malick himself has never quite achieved the same universal recognition as a director. It’s because his films depend too heavily on photography and not enough on everything else. That said, the question now is whether the photography is awesome enough to call this film one of the best of the year  and the answer there is yes, even good enough to rank somewhere on my Top Ten list for 2011.