The Tree of Life

[ᾦɐļᵲʊʂ]

No longer surprised by Xixax.  First, some people are disappointed by this movie.  Then it quickly goes into a whinefest about digital vs. film.  I saw it on film, it's probably just as good on digital.  It's an incredible work of art, let's discuss the content.

I'm not of the opinion that Terence Malick is beyond reproach.  However, he's clearly demonstrated he knows how to make a strongly reverberating work of cinema.  If Tree of Life somehow fell short of your expectations, then I have absolutely no idea what you wanted from this movie.  The trailer is no way misled you from the type of film it turned out to be, and his previous work should have at least prepared you for this.  There is a narrative that is broken up much like memories and it convulses with natural imagery that moves very gracefully.  Also, the film has made an incredible comparison of grace and nature, so to go into that would be beating a dead horse.

The fact that this movie opened on four screens (out of seven) at my theater is both invigorating and harrowing.  Clearly it's been on the tip of everyone's tongue not because of the name Malick but because of Penn and Pitt.  The New World, an incredible film, was not the most encouraging work for people because it didn't have much star power, or at least on the level of Tree of Life (or Thin Red Line for that matter).  Even the reviews are giving it high marks out of necessity, I imagine, wanting to not look puerile.  But even in the reviews the critics admit the film is hard to follow and isn't for everyone, it is more meditation than traditional narrative.  

In lieu of any real connection, Your Highness had a similar difficulty.  It had stars in it, it was directed by David Gordon Green, but where people sought a comedy, they found only adventure.  Preferring to laugh at stoner jokes and perhaps much less latent homosexual jokes (that don't mock gays but embrace a bond among men that suggests gay but leaves it open to heterosexual brotherly love), it seems audiences get very upset when they don't get what they want.  Hell, even look at Bridesmaids.  The constant review I hear is: "Actually not bad.  Looks like a chick flick, but it's totally for guys, too.  It's just actually really funny."  It's not uncommon to overhear in the theater "Fine, I'll go to this movie with you, but then we have to go to a girly one" and the boyfriend will oblige.  An audience should know what they're getting into, but is female comedy impossible of appealing to males?  Should it be a shock that it's not torture to the boyfriends?  Should single men or groups of buddies avoid movies that aren't aimed at them?  Is a comedy a failure if you don't laugh as much as you thought you might or at least in the way you wanted to?  

You don't even have to force yourself to like Tree of Life to like it.  It's visually stunning, the family's interaction is the most visceral and honest portrayal of the dynamics of love, even when it feels like the love is somehow absent because the love is not received in a way one expects.  So it is internalized through misinterpretation, but that's the beauty of it all, isn't it?  You might not get it now, because you were hoping for something else, but looking at a film objectively and not through the scope of "I was kind of hoping for more plot and less rumination," Tree of Life will later be even more appreciated than it is now.  It's just difficult presently to absorb the full size of it.  But this movie was being worked on for a very long time, and even as Malick has demonstrated, he doesn't just churn out thoughtless blockbusters.  

Now, I have no idea what may sway everyone here, but I have a feeling Tree of Life will be grossly overlooked come awards time (Xixax, not that any other awards even matters anyway).

[modage]

let's discuss the content.

Amused by this introduction...

In lieu of any real connection, Your Highness had a similar difficulty.  It had stars in it, it was directed by David Gordon Green, but where people sought a comedy, they found only adventure.  Preferring to laugh at stoner jokes and perhaps much less latent homosexual jokes (that don't mock gays but embrace a bond among men that suggests gay but leaves it open to heterosexual brotherly love), it seems audiences get very upset when they don't get what they want.  Hell, even look at Bridesmaids.  The constant review I hear is: "Actually not bad.  Looks like a chick flick, but it's totally for guys, too.  It's just actually really funny."  It's not uncommon to overhear in the theater "Fine, I'll go to this movie with you, but then we have to go to a girly one" and the boyfriend will oblige.  An audience should know what they're getting into, but is female comedy impossible of appealing to males?  Should it be a shock that it's not torture to the boyfriends?  Should single men or groups of buddies avoid movies that aren't aimed at them?  Is a comedy a failure if you don't laugh as much as you thought you might or at least in the way you wanted to?

...considering this aside.

I'm not of the opinion that Terence Malick is beyond reproach.

I think that most people here feel this way, yourself included. If it's not true, I'd like to hear your criticisms of this/any Malick film.

If Tree of Life somehow fell short of your expectations, then I have absolutely no idea what you wanted from this movie.  

Can't speak for everyone but I wanted a movie that involved me emotionally from beginning to end. I don't have some rule about the % of plot vs. rumination that a film is allowed but I'm either captivated or I'm not. And beautiful scenery without emotional involvement is as empty as action spectacle without characters you care about. I prefer a movie that hits like a punch in the gut in most cases over one that's a whispery slice of New Age'y nonsense. What did this movie mean to you?  What was it about?

his previous work should have at least prepared you for this.

This part is true. But it had been 6 years since "The New World" and I'm a little older so I thought maybe I'd have a greater appreciation for his work now. Additionally, I thought the premise sounded great and had a ton of potential.

The fact that this movie opened on four screens (out of seven) at my theater is both invigorating and harrowing

Harrowing?

Now, I have no idea what may sway everyone here, but I have a feeling Tree of Life will be grossly overlooked come awards time (Xixax, not that any other awards even matters anyway).

Oscars, yes. Xixaxies? You're out of your mind.

[ᾦɐļᵲʊʂ]

let's discuss the content.

Amused by this introduction...

In lieu of any real connection, Your Highness had a similar difficulty.  It had stars in it, it was directed by David Gordon Green, but where people sought a comedy, they found only adventure.  Preferring to laugh at stoner jokes and perhaps much less latent homosexual jokes (that don't mock gays but embrace a bond among men that suggests gay but leaves it open to heterosexual brotherly love), it seems audiences get very upset when they don't get what they want.  Hell, even look at Bridesmaids.  The constant review I hear is: "Actually not bad.  Looks like a chick flick, but it's totally for guys, too.  It's just actually really funny."  It's not uncommon to overhear in the theater "Fine, I'll go to this movie with you, but then we have to go to a girly one" and the boyfriend will oblige.  An audience should know what they're getting into, but is female comedy impossible of appealing to males?  Should it be a shock that it's not torture to the boyfriends?  Should single men or groups of buddies avoid movies that aren't aimed at them?  Is a comedy a failure if you don't laugh as much as you thought you might or at least in the way you wanted to?

...considering this aside.

I guess it was an aside that helped establish my point of the material being about expectation, or at least planning to derive more from something than it possesses or of just a different variety.  Granted I didn't address much content about what the movie made me feel in that post, but I hope to rectify it in this response.

I'm not of the opinion that Terence Malick is beyond reproach.

I think that most people here feel this way, yourself included. If it's not true, I'd like to hear your criticisms of this/any Malick film.

I don't believe he's beyond reproach just by going into his movies.  I'll admit I haven't been let down by him, but I don't refuse to be let down by him.  To be fair, I am a very lenient critic, as the culmination of a film is an incredible undertaking, so I will admit that I basically praise experimental filmmakers when they really make things happen.  That's just going to happen for me, I guess.

If Tree of Life somehow fell short of your expectations, then I have absolutely no idea what you wanted from this movie.  

Can't speak for everyone but I wanted a movie that involved me emotionally from beginning to end. I don't have some rule about the % of plot vs. rumination that a film is allowed but I'm either captivated or I'm not. And beautiful scenery without emotional involvement is as empty as action spectacle without characters you care about. I prefer a movie that hits like a punch in the gut in most cases over one that's a whispery slice of New Age'y nonsense. What did this movie mean to you?  What was it about?

For me I think it's telling that you prefer movies that hit you like a punch in the gut, because punch in the gut Tree of Life is not.  Instead, Tree of Life is more of a sustained meditation.  It is a capturing of the swirling essences that create the tapestry of existence.  It is hard to describe what I really appreciated about Tree of Life without employing some New Age'y nonsense, but that is the fashion in which is reached me.  Far be it from me to reject an idea simply because it is not presented to me in a way I desired it would be.  

This sort of brings it back to the 'beyond reproach' bit, doesn't it?  How could a director fuck up a movie about the experience of internalization?  And hell, since Terence Malick made it, it really couldn't go wrong, right?  Does that mean it doesn't even have to have been made?  It's so perfectly aligned that it almost shouldn't even have been executed because it runs the risk of appearing redundant.

But I'm glad it was made, I had an incredible experience because both vaguely narratively, there is a strong current of a family story interwoven with the creation of the earth.  Very few characters are examined beyond the family, and even though the family is only half of the movie, we get to know them so intimately that it becomes shocking because we're seeing them juxtaposed with high concept natural imagery.  We grow so close to this family, they experience a tragedy that galvanizes them, we learn these details and we feel for them, but we don't know all that has transpired.  The more we are shown the history of the planet, we know these details but they exist beyond us.  They are incredibly long stretches of time, growth, evolution, death, from the cosmos to molecules.  And then on a personal level, the domestic psychologies presented counterbalance these grand ideas with people developing conflicts internally, trying to wrestle with the concept of two halves that merged to present a new part, or series of unique parts differently assembled from the union of the two.

Just talking about it makes me want to see it again pretty badly.

But it had been 6 years since "The New World" and I'm a little older so I thought maybe I'd have a greater appreciation for his work now. Additionally, I thought the premise sounded great and had a ton of potential.

This part is true.

The fact that this movie opened on four screens (out of seven) at my theater is both invigorating and harrowing

Harrowing?

Invigorating because experimental film opens up really widely and it could lead to that hypothetical mass enlightenment that was coined and then instantly decoined by a macro, even though ticket sales have thus far been really quite astounding for a movie of this sort.

Harrowing because honestly, I work in this theater.  It opened on four screens out of seven.  If word of mouth spreads about Tree of Life as being boring or hard to get, my hours at work will tank and that sucks and is not impossible.  If the movie was like (500) Days of Summer, I wouldn't be worried at all, we'd make all the money for sure.  So far, so good, though.  It's been selling well, but to be on four screens is a considerable risk.

Now, I have no idea what may sway everyone here, but I have a feeling Tree of Life will be grossly overlooked come awards time (Xixax, not that any other awards even matters anyway).

Oscars, yes. Xixaxies? You're out of your mind.

I guess now my feeling is that the Xixaxies are beyond my prediction.  I've been so surprised by who sweeps lately, especially by Social Network of recent memory.

[Ghostboy]

SPOILS!

It made me cry twice, and almost three times (the door in the desert at the end was a little much and countered the emotion I was feeling). I haven't been able to shake it since.

[picolas]

let's still post spoils when it comes to images near the end of the film, eh? it's not viewable in some countries yet.

[Stefen]

Is a Malick film even spoilable? 

Doesn't open here 'til later this month. 

[Ravi]

SPOILERS


Tree of Life is one of the only films I can remember seeing that captured what it feels like to recall one's past. The fragmented yet immediate nature of the memories as well as the overwhelming rush of feelings. Sometimes its almost too much to handle.

The film is intimate and yet the creation of the earth stuff presents the big picture (the biggest picture?) by showing that everything that happens is but a blip in the history of the universe. People are born, they have triumphs and sorrows, they die, and the earth marches on. The dinosaurs that lived millions of years ago are nothing today. Maybe a set of bones. That seems like a facile theme, but its presented here so movingly and artistically.

The relationship of Pitt and Jack hit close to home for me, because it reminded me of my sometimes contentious relationship with my own father. Pitt has certain regrets about his life (which may or may not include having a family), and he tries to shape his boys into good people the best way he knows how. He can be a disciplinarian, but his obvious love for his sons and his passion for music show his more sensitive side. As I get older I have increasingly noticed things about my dad I dislike, but I also see things in him that humanize him for me.

This film does a fantastic job of depicting a previous time period and making it feel real and lived in. Sometimes period pieces feel very production-designed or as if they're a depiction of an era as seen through that era's film and TV shows.

[The Perineum Falcon]

I saw it last night. The experience is difficult to put into words, not only for my own limitations as a critic, but to do so would also take away the power of the images and the montage. This is a masterful film, and I am completely enamored with it. I feel like I grew up during the course of the film.

Malick is Beethoven in images; TOL is his Ode to Joy. There isn't an ending so much as an outro.

It's kind of like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4VouG_EO60&feature=player_detailpage#t=172s

I would like to discuss it more, but I really need to see it again and again and again and again....

[Reinhold]

i saw it again last night. not much new to say except that my friend sebastian pointed out the similarities in the creation scene to the one in fantasia.

[RegularKarate]

I saw this Friday and I can only echo what most here have been saying.  I was washed away with it.  It picked me up and just carried me throughout the movie.

It got a little slow for me, but I think that "slowness" was just me coming down from the high that the rest of the movie had me on... and it didn't last long because it picked me back up pretty quickly.

I can't fight people who don't like the movie.  It's not that they "don't get" something, they just don't like it.  The film is so simple that it seems confusing... I got confused a couple times because I was trying to think too hard, which was a mistake.  Experience the movie then think later... most of the enjoyment of this movie is driven by immediate reactions.  Which, to me, means if you didn't like it, you didn't like it... but maybe give it some time and watch it again, it really is like music.

Not to dive back into the dumb Digital argument, but I saw this as a film print and I am seeing as a digital print next week, but I don't think the comparison will be fair because the projectionist at this theater was really bad.  The light in the booth was left on and the left a bright stain on the screen throughout the whole movie and the bulb was clearly old because the text was bleeding (this could also be bad belts).

[Gold Trumpet]

Thinking about Tree of Life and The Master next year, I wonder if the XIXAX awards should start to rank the order of the voting results for topics (ala National Board of Review). Even though I believe both of these films will dominate their respective years, I'm more curious what films will duke it out for 2nd and 3rd place. There are just too many filmmakers this board can have the tendency to flock to if they make a "great" film.

[MacGuffin]

Fox Searchlight To Take "The Tree of Life" To the U.K.
Source: indiewire

Fox Searchlight announced that it will distribute Terrence Malick's "The Tree of Life" in the U.K., finally giving a home to the film that was orphaned after a contract dispute with Icon Entertainment. Searchlight, which is handling the film in North America, plans to move quickly in order to benefit from the film's worldwide buzz and Palme D'Or win. It will release "Tree" July 8. In March, Icon Entertainment announced that it planned to release the film on May 4, ahead of its Cannes premiere. This would have made the UK the first region in the world to see the film, and would have disqualified its inclusion at Cannes. Bill Pohlad's River Road Entertainment, which financed the film, and foreign sales agent Summit Entertainment were nonplussed. They declared that Icon's intent put the company in default on its distribution agreement and the distributor lost the right to distribute "The Tree of Life" in the UK. "Tree" has been doing quite well both in the U.S. and overseas. The former will see another expansion this weekend, followed by a national release July 1. From the release: "We knew this was an amazing film from the moment we saw it," said Fox Searchlight Pictures presidents Nancy Utley and Stephen Gilula in a statement. "Based on the hugely successful opening in the United States, we couldn't be more thrilled to be releasing this film in the United Kingdom." "Fox Searchlight has been an extraordinary partner distributing our film in the United States," added Pohlad. "So we're thrilled to have them release 'The Tree of Life' in the United Kingdom, allowing international audiences to experience Terry's beautiful and affecting masterpiece."

[Jeremy Blackman]

Saw it, loved it. Spoiler-free review:

I don't understand why this is being called "impressionistic." That's completely misleading. This is the opposite of impressionism. The characters are deep, clear, and fully-realized. They are initially fleeting, but their elements sort of swirl together and fully crystallize with surprising skill.

Malick is coming at you from a different direction. It's like he's a surgeon who's calculated that, actually, if you make the incision here, you can reach the vein more directly. This makes more sense if you've seen the movie. It feels like he's specifically bypassing the conventions that can get in the way of a potent idea.

This is mostly done through the camera movements and the editing. I can't really think of a parallel for either in any film I've seen. It's crazy, insane editing, really. And so many of the camera movements and angles are totally odd but totally effective in a really unexpected way.

It's designed in a way that almost involuntarily provokes a close and careful viewing. Unless you're already completely cynical about the film, you want to figure things out. But yes, if you are skeptical enough, it may never work for you. It's very delicate in that way.

I haven't really decided what I think the origin stuff means, but I'm not sure that's something I need to do. It doesn't feel like a mystery that needs to be solved. It feels spiritual and personal, and surprisingly open to interpretation (in a way that few things actually are). While you may not be able to explain it in a sentence, it seems oddly self-explanatory.

It's not impressionistic, and it's not even abstract. If anything, it's symbolic. I don't understand why symbolism should be challenging or confrontational for anyone, since we've been dealing with it in art and culture for who knows how long. And even then, there's more free association in the film than symbolism. It's actually completely intuitive. And it definitely worked for me.

[Fernando]

Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain reveal Terrence Malick's methods in filming 'THE TREE OF LIFE' -

* be warned, it has some spoilers, I stopped watching it actually.

http://movies.yahoo.com/summer-movies/the-tree-of-life/1810022079#first

[samsong]

I don't understand why this is being called "impressionistic." That's completely misleading. This is the opposite of impressionism.

i hate to engage in petty discourse over semantics but i have to say i find this claim to be befuddling.  to me, malick's films are inherently impressionistic in style, none of them more so than the tree of life.  so either our understandings of the term are off or we had vastly different experiences with the film.

some spoilers, i guess

as for the meaning of the origin sequence, i don't think there's a clear-cut meaning to be drawn from it but its presence within the film is obviously integral.  the crux of malick's poetry (of late, anyway) lies in parallelism and the implications of considering the birth and ostensible end of the universe in the same breath as a story about childhood memories is astonishingly impacting.  ed gonzalez at slant magazine described the film as a "confession of human inconsequence", a notion that has no greater point of reference than the vastness of the universe.

personally i was really surprised that a film that utilized so many archetypes and familiar symbols/imagery could still be as moving as this was.  a constant criticism i hear is that the vision of heaven (if that's even what it is) is cliche -- people wandering a picturesque beach, reunited with loved ones, but i still found this finale to be wholly satisfying.  it doesn't quite reach the heights of the crescendo at the end of the new world but that was a different film.

ghostboy, out of curiosity, at what points in the film did you cry?