“Tree of Life”

I saw the magnificent and enthralling new Terrence Malick film, "Tree of Life" this afternoon after reading about it and realizing for a fact that this was to be cinema of the most awe-inspiring kind.   I was right.  For two and a half hours I sat glued to my seat, a wondrous feat for someone whose attention span is so brief, and was mesmerized by the images, music, and family story of childhood unfolding on the screen.   It is the type of movie I long to see and which so rarely comes along.   I can’t even remember the last time I sat in a theater watching a movie and I had not seen any of Malick’s four previous films, dating to Badlands in 1973.    I said afterward that it’s a combination of many past movies and directors that I remember well, including 2001:  A Space Odyssey," "A River Runs Through It," Ingmar Bergman’s "Smiles of a Summer Night," and the immortal play, "Our Town" by Thornton Wilder.

"Tree of Life" is cosmic and multi-dimensional.   For twenty minutes early in the film, we are transported to what appears to be the creation of the universe and then to our own life-sustaining planet Earth.  Before and then after this, the small town in Texas appears with its interspersing of 1950s and 19th century houses and massive live oak trees, light, shadow and a powerful sense of another time and place — a haven and sanctuary for the children to grow up in amidst their father’s explosive bouts of love and domineering control.   Anyone who has seen my photos of old houses, streets, picket fences and lost worlds of the past, will appreciate the houses, setting and streets in Waco and Smithville Texas where the movie was filmed.  

The entire time I feasted on the unforgettable scenes, the symbolic images, the thought-provoking narration and dialog.   Nothing was wasted.  The movie was mind-expanding and, yes, even mind-altering, as all great film is.   I walked out into the bright early July sun and heat, dazed at first at how quiet everything seemed, and filled with thoughts and memories which tumbled over themselves in succession as I thought about my own childhood and early teenage years in the suburbs of New Orleans in the 1960s.   The interaction of the brothers and their father and mother is a fascinating and compelling thing to watch and I was caught up in it totally.  

Can you recall the last time you watched a movie in absolute awe, stunned by the beauty, truth and opening of portals to the far reaches of the universe and beyond?   It seems impossible, yet it happened. This movie has had a profound effect on me.  It’s all I have been able to think about this evening, and as you can see, I felt compelled to write about it, though the greatest of wordsmiths would be humbled trying to describe the experience of viewing this movie.

From the New York Review of Books:

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/jul/14/variety-movie-experience/