The stakes were high with director Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life. This may not have been the case in Malick’s eyes, but most certainly was for his devoted fans. Up to this point, he has been the only American filmmaker with a perfect batting average. Since his 1973 debut feature Badlands, each of his movies has been an artful masterpiece. Now the winner of the top prize at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival, The Tree of Life has been unleashed, and this new masterpiece meets and perhaps even exceeds expectations.
For those seeking a straightforward family drama about Texas Christians in the 20th century, abandon your expectations lest you be disappointed. Instead, surrender yourself to the visual and aural intoxication of Malick’s spiritual odyssey. Yes, a fair amount of the film follows young Jack as he attempts to reconcile the tough love of his father (Brad Pitt) and the graceful acceptance of his mother (Jessica Chastain). But the freeform film also features adult Jack (Sean Penn), visions of the afterlife, a recreation of the Big Bang and even dinosaurs. To talk about this film in terms of plot or performances would be a disservice to the complexity of what it is trying to accomplish.
Based on Malick’s previous efforts and the trailer for the film, I expected The Tree of Life to be a human tapestry about the South along the lines of William Faulkner’s intricate novels. But if I compared The Tree of Life to any one work, it would be Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. The Kubrick masterpiece is often simplistically referred to as a science fiction movie, but it is really a story of evolution that explores humanity and spirituality in space and across time. Similarly, The Tree of Life spans the entirety of eternity, and it suggests that to understand what it means to be human, it is equally important to understand where we come from and where we are going.
Consistent with its stream-of-consciousness narrative, the film defies the conventions of Hollywood filmmaking techniques. Jump cuts jarringly depict characters’ reactions to death. A roaming handheld camera suggests the subjective presence of an outsider, perhaps a ghost or spirit. Low angles during the scenes featuring an infant Jack emphasize the character’s perspective. And these scenes of Jack’s early childhood in particular are composed of scattered images: swimming fish, mirrors, the wrinkled faces of the elderly and much more. These cinematic collages mimic the excitement of an infant discovering the world for the first time.
But perhaps the most stunning achievement of the film is its second act, a vision of the universe’s creation. Starting with darkness and slowly erupting with the chaos of the big bang, the sequence immerses the audience with the gushing of the first seas and the molten rock of a forming planet. Later in the film, Chastain joyously points her young son’s eyes to the sky and proclaims, “That’s where God is.” Instead of asking easy questions with readily available answers, The Tree of Life implicitly attempts to reconcile the Big Bang with faith in a higher power and an afterlife.
While the movie grapples with the inconsequential nature of humanity in an infinite universe, it also focuses on the quiet thoughts of the characters. With Malick’s characteristic use of voice-over, the audience hears whispered prayers. After a young boy drowns, Jack prays, “Was he bad? Where were you? You let a boy die.” Even more gut-wrenching, his father works under a car held up by a jack, and the young boy pleads, “Kill him. Let him die.” A film that at one point focuses on the simple beauty of a butterfly landing in Chastain’s hand, The Tree of Life at other times confronts our most violent impulses.
Malick understands the power of the moving image more than any American filmmaker. Over the past four decades, he has developed his own cinematic syntax that fully realizes the capabilities of the medium. But because his movies have defied conventional filmmaking rules, they often resemble other means of expression. Badlands is a diary documenting the discovery of love and violence. Days of Heaven is a landscape painting detailing the lush natural imagery of the South. The Thin Red Line is an epic poem capturing the many facets of war. The New World is classical music presenting the Pocahontas myth in expressive movements. But with The Tree of Life, Malick gives us the raw material of the human soul. More than merely focusing on the relationships of characters to each other, he invites us to reflect on the images we focus on and the larger existential questions we ask ourselves.
Unintentionally, The Tree of Life exposes the failings of film criticism. Reviewers will force themselves to make conclusions about the film based on one or two screenings. The latest masterpiece by Malick is an elaborate work consisting of several layers, meant to be peeled and picked apart. To completely grasp everything the film has to say about humanity, the universe and a possible higher power would be impossible in one viewing. “The thing that depresses me the most,” the late Robert Altman once said, “is that people say they’ve seen one of my films when what they mean is, they’ve seen it once.” The Tree of Life is an awe-inspiring experience, and the fact that it is one of the best films of all time will only be increasingly apparent as the years pass.
Grade: A+
Bottom Line: Simply put, this unforgettable experience is the greatest movie since Malick’s own The New World.