{"id":6575,"date":"2011-06-03T00:04:14","date_gmt":"2011-06-03T04:04:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.regrettablesincerity.com\/?p=6575"},"modified":"2011-06-03T03:12:35","modified_gmt":"2011-06-03T07:12:35","slug":"the-tree-of-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regrettablesincerity.com\/?p=6575","title":{"rendered":"The Tree of Life"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Is there a significant difference between getting your money\u2019s worth and getting too much? In terms of moviegoing, there\u2019s two ways of dealing with that thought; Since you\u2019ve paid, you have to get as much as you can out of the experience. Or, since you\u2019ve paid, it\u2019s your time and your money, and torturing yourself with more than you\u2019d like is unnecessary, and it\u2019s precisely because it\u2019s free that you should get up and leave when you want. When I was younger, I believed in the former, and sat through some films that would permanently harm a normal human (Blankman, Destiny Turns on the Radio, Car 54, Where are You?, The Jerky Boys, North<\/em>). The turning point was probably Peter Greenaway<\/span><\/a>\u2019s The Pillow Book<\/em>, where, accompanied by a friend who was often likely to walk out of a movie, we had had enough of what the movie could give us. Not that the film was bad, mind you, it\u2019s just that we\u2019d enjoyed as much as we could of what the movie was doing well (and Greenaway can be quite repetitive), and another 20 minutes would spoil it.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>What then would the teenage me make of Terrence Malick\u2019s The Tree of Life<\/em>, which is a whole movie + 20%? Certainly there\u2019s enough whispered voiceover of biblical scripture to last until at least, well, another Terrence Malick movie (current ETA? 2039). And while there\u2019s not much of a story in The Tree of Life<\/em>, mostly very specific incidents in a child\u2019s life that explain who this person will grow up to be (life\u2019s first experiences of every clich\u00e9d type), it\u2019s probably even more than 120% of a movie because the film is dictated to us. It\u2019s not just the copious narration, which Malick fans have long been accustomed to (Badlands, Days of Heaven, The Thin Red Line<\/em>), but the fact that it\u2019s an entire movie without reaction shots. Brad Pitt\u2019s father character, first nameless, behind thick cartoon glasses, with Pitt curling his lips in (one of his acting crutches) to give us the impression of a tough, but simplistic hick , talks to his sons, dictating their lives to them. We don\u2019t know how they feel about it, because Malick never cuts to them. It\u2019s not just Pitt\u2019s character, though; there are no reactions from anyone<\/em> until the movie is nearly over*.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Information is kept to a minimum, as per Malick\u2019s norm. He famously had to add the narration to Days of Heaven<\/em> because he\u2019d cut out so much story that the movie no longer made any sense. And the perspective he has his leads narrate from is always the na\u00efve POV, so wild-eyed and childlike is somehow acceptable. However, this tactic really only worked in Badlands<\/em>, because Sissy Spacek\u2019s character is rather matter-of-factly surprised at her Bonnie and Clyde predicament, and her narration is like simplistic ironic commentary on itself, and becomes funny. In The Tree of Life<\/em>, the narration isn\u2019t even of much help. We start with Sean Penn\u2019s nameless character (son of Pitt) looking back on his childhood and it\u2019s not even clear which one of the three children he\u2019s supposed to be (I had to check the credits just to be sure). And he tells us he\u2019s thinking about his brother who died when he was 19, but doesn\u2019t tell us how. So when there\u2019s a mid-film drowning (there\u2019s no such thing as spoilers in this movie, the events accumulate, they\u2019re individually meaningless), the hint is that it\u2019s one of Pitt\u2019s children, but I don\u2019t think it is, at least with what we\u2019re told. His wife (Jessica Chastain) seems genuinely upset, but it\u2019s very difficult to figure out which child dies, exactly.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>And there\u2019s the additional issue of bookending the movie with absolutely stunning visuals, more otherworldly than Malick is known for, as we\u2019ve gone back to The Big Bang, and then a segment from Terrence Malick\u2019s Walking With Dinosaurs<\/em>, and on and on. This has nothing to do with the story at hand, and getting impatient is a perfectly reasonable reaction. Individually, each shot is astonishing, but it\u2019s quite the silly way to show us how \u201clife began\u201d if you then cut from standard marking points of evolution directly to the 1950s (I think, timelines are not clear, but no Malick films are told in the \u201cnow\u201d as if he didn\u2019t understand the \u201cnow\u201d).<\/p>\n

Now I\u2019d certainly watch a Malification of heaven, which is where The Tree of Life <\/em>seems to be going at times, but his obsession with extraneous visuals suggests he might be better off making another sequel to Koyaanisqatsi<\/em>, so he doesn\u2019t have to bother with talking or people. His focus on giving us the most striking establishing shot possible (a swarm of bees move like a kite, a child in his grave shot below the dirt and from the side) is similar to what Tarsem Singh<\/span><\/a> did with The Fall<\/em>, it was that neither filmmaker knew what to do after the initial marvel had disappeared. It\u2019s as if Malick isn\u2019t a filmmaker, but the greatest storyboard artist of all time.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>And yet, despite all of these problems, or probably because of them The Tree of Life<\/em> does tell a coherent story in its own way. We see the progression of Brad Pitt\u2019s character from a modest man who loves his wife and children to a nasty, abusive monster, and it\u2019s all basically told from his son Jack\u2019s perspective, despite the fact that Jack doesn\u2019t have much dialogue. It sneaks up on you, all of the flashy visuals that could double as outtakes from 2001: A Space Odyssey<\/em> or Enter the Void<\/em> (minus the strobing effects, but with an equal amount of self-indulgence) are almost a trick to get you to roll your eyes at the pretension, so your expectations will hit bottom. Scenes build up seemingly without meaning, until it becomes clear who Jack\u2019s father has become, and you find yourself sympathizing with both sides, learning how parents find ways to alienate themselves from their children just by taking on their natural roles. It\u2019s oddly profound for a movie that is so nakedly sloppy and self-important.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* Near the end there\u2019s a very misguided scene that does<\/em> feature visible reactions, as all of the characters from various time periods meet each other on the beach and embrace. Perhaps it was supposed to be a sort of House of Games<\/em>-style peek behind the curtain, but it plays like outtakes from the wrap party.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Is there a significant difference between getting your money\u2019s worth and getting too much? In terms of moviegoing, there\u2019s two ways of dealing with that thought; Since you\u2019ve paid, you have to get as much as you can out of the experience. Or, since you\u2019ve paid, it\u2019s your time and your money, and torturing yourself […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[2516,4058,7878,5188,7875,2626,7883,7869,3247,2146,7871,7870,7879,4910,7882,1719,4600,2324,7874,140,7877,5189,2238,80,7880,831,5185,5743,3654,2144,6532,3653,7873,7868,1039,7072,7876,7881,7872],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regrettablesincerity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6575"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regrettablesincerity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regrettablesincerity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regrettablesincerity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regrettablesincerity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regrettablesincerity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6575\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regrettablesincerity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regrettablesincerity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regrettablesincerity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}