To The Wonder

[Lottery]

As time progresses, sometimes it seems like he wants to be an American Tarkovsky.

Badlands may be one of the greatest debuts and it did seem like his voice was fully formed. Badlands seemed incredibly mature or however you would like to say it. However, how do we come to describe his voice, especially if it hasn't changed? There's certainly been a tendency towards letting go of traditional form.

[The Ultimate Badass]

Malick has seemed to have found his voice and it's utterly fucking beautiful. More, more, more.

malick's "voice" hasn't changed since the 70s. in fact it emerged almost fully formed.

I don't know how you can say that. You're saying Badlands, or even Days of Heaven, is the same type of movie as Tree of Life. I'd like to see you try to defend that statement.

You can clearly see the evolution of Malick's voice throughout the years. Whereas Badlands was a fairly orthodox narrative-driven movie, each of his subsequent movies relies less on narrative and more on communicating raw emotions, cinematically. By Tree of Life most of the extraneous narrative has been jettisoned and we're left with an almost abstract, purely sensual, emotional experience. And, IMO, it works. It's effective and it's masterful and it's beautiful.

What's up with the hating on Malick?

[Reel]

Roger Ebert's Last Review

[diggler]

Shit, now this bad movie will forever be immortalized because Ebert wrote a perfect last review.

[matt35mm]

I thought this movie was swell. I liked it a lot.

I think there will be two mistakes that are made in watching this movie that will result in a bad experience.

First is to expect what you're seeing to match up to real life (people don't act like that, people talk more, people twirl less, etc.). I think the movie has the same impulse as mythic Greek plays, but where the old plays would use immensely dramatic dialogue to create the larger-than-life, this movie uses the extreme lack of dialogue to create a similar larger-than-life-ness. I know that the actors all had a lot of backstory, but Malick cut all of that stuff out. They aren't people so much as the shape of people, and it's not as much about the specific situations as much as it is about the mythical sense of romantic love/loss of love/God's love.

The movie then observes the characters as if they were birds, wordlessly pecking, dancing, chirping, and otherwise sending signals to try and attract a mate, or indicate disinterest in the other, whatever. But it's like watching how attraction and coupling works in the animal kingdom. Whenever you watch bird documentaries, you don't think, "That's what THAT bird is doing." You think, "That's what birds do." There is a similar effect here.

So wanting the characters on screen to be more directly relatable in an obvious way is going to result in frustration. They are exaggerated and distilled emotions in the shape of people, moving around in the environment. If you're keyed into that, then it works quite well.

Second mistake that will result in a bad experience is to think that Malick is just doing same-old-Malick. I think the ingredients and technique are similar, but the emphasis and balance between humans/environment are different than what he's done before. It's a wilder movie than anything he's made before, and that re-contextualizes the standard nature shots that he still has in there. Nature offers less comfort here, and some uglier environments are seen. Using actual townspeople and having, apparently, no written dialogue, means that the camera and editing has to hunt more, and there's an interesting quality of the camera never really knowing where it's supposed to be, but desperately trying to find it. That's not really how I would describe any other Malick movie. Some/most may not care for it, and want something more stable and sure of itself, but I liked it.

[samsong]

"Look at the glory around us--trees, birds.  I lived in shame.  I dishonored it all, and didn't notice the glory.  I'm a foolish man."

one of my favorite lines from the tree of life, the sentiments from which course through every glorious frame of to the wonder.  on first viewing i'm not entirely blown away and it's by no means perfect, but i'm nowhere near displeased, and i can't wait to see it again.  that is to say i liked it very much and it lingers.  malick pushes his new mode of expression to varying degrees of success.  i found the majority of the film to be blissful.  at its best it engages and evokes purely through form.  it's his most involved use of sound to date, which i found to be enthralling.  his love of antonioni is on display in big, bold letters in this one.  there's definitely a lot that invites easy cynicism but that's always the case with a malick film.  i for one am grateful.

maybe there will be more to say after a second viewing/more people have seen it.

glenn heath jr on letterboxd:

The toxicity of emotional stagnation is all encompassing. It seeps from the ground, drifts like dust in the air, lingers on the wind's breath, infecting us all no matter how hard we try to avoid it. "I'd hoped to never love again..." but is there another conceivable path? It starts from a place of instinctual bliss and slowly evolves toward an unthinkably silent, confused state of indecision and panic, or everyday life. Malick is once again measuring all things great and small through a cinema of vibrations and tones, and he's created a massive/miniature tidal wave of momentum, filling the gaps where "narrative" should be with titanic images of lived experience devoid of wordplay. Heartache and joy, rage and confusion are no longer internal feelings, but external prayers sent outward for those around us to decipher and engage. Some people are more attuned to understanding than others.

This is a film of confessions and releases, towering industrial castles and deep horizons. A spinning glass orb, a spiraling camera that never stops swirling in harmony with the birds in the sky and the horses on the ground. Choosing to commit blissfully is the highest achievement, while choosing to commit out of convenience or necessity is a breach of all that is natural and right. We all dance around each other, pacing from one end of the frame to other, waiting to touch, hoping to graze against skin, yet afraid of realizing this sustained connection when it all happens gracefully enough. Eventually, after the fear and doubt and lust and desire and sadness subside, one final truth is revealed: we are ourselves at all times, but we are so much more than ourselves when we are in the right place, at the right time, with the right frame of mind, enjoying it all at once. That is transcendence, and sometimes, it does happen.

[Alexandro]

I kept thinking Malick is such a shy person that when he finally makes an autobiographical film with an actor as his stand in, that actor barely speaks or shows any sign of a personality through the whole damn film. I don't think Ben Affleck was the right choice for this. Olga and Rachel MacAdams have a weight to them, which makes their characters work, even in the sketchy manner that Malick is attempting here. But Affleck comes off as a log. Maybe that's what Malick wanted. If that's the case, to me it was a mistake.

The film is a visual joy, but it's true that it mostly consists of shots of the main actors walking or twirling or touching grass. At this point is a little silly that it seems twirling and touching plants is about the only way Malick knows of portraying good times, and looking sully or scared is the way he has of portraying "bad times". In general I felt that the theme of love was better explored in The New World than here. The real interesting stuff was with Bardem's character. I think Bardem can make anything work. He should have been the lead.