The Tree of Life

[Cognitive Gear]

Director: Terrence Malick (Badlands, Days of Heave, The Thin Red Line, The New World)
Cast: Brad Pitt, Sean Penn, Jessica Chastain
Release Date: TBA

Trailer




This is one of my most anticipated films until whenever it finally gets released. Malick seems to always deliver. (Though I haven't seen all of his movies yet, I'm working on fixing that.)

[Radical Dreamer]

Wow. This looks freaking beautiful. I really hope this gets more than a limited release, or at least comes to a big city nearby, because I'd love to see it on a big screen. XD

[Warrior 4 Jesus]

Wow. I've never heard of the movie but I watched the trailer and it looks very good. Not my preferred genre but that doesn't matter. The cinematography was beautiful and the story looks heartfelt. Another movie to look forward too. Thanks for sharing mate!

[Scarecrow]

Meh.... while the trailer is good, I can't help but feel this is gonna be one of those films where the trailer is better than the film. I've seen The New World and while I thought the trailer was great, the movie was mind numbingly boring. The subject matter for this I just don't see how it can be interesting for more than a few minutes. I'll see it on DVD unless it gets amazing reviews from normal people (ie not critics... who will probably gush over this film).

[CrimsonRyu17]

Synopsis sounds incredibly cliché.

[Cognitive Gear]

Went to see the movie yesterday.

This is an amazing work of poetry. Malick has done away with traditional narrative and plot, and instead built his movie on theme, emotion, metaphor, and a desire to encompass the wholeness of the universe.

To be honest, I wouldn't take a normal movie goer to see The Tree of Life. It's told in the same way that most of us remember our lives: in bits and pieces, sometimes in chronological order, and other times not. In the same fashion, it is an incredibly human work, spanning the vastness of time and space, only to stop and take time to view the day to day lives of a family in the 1950s.

As Roger Ebert so deftly said, The Tree of Life is a prayer.

[ShiroiHikari]

Sounds like it's worth checking out sometime.

[Cognitive Gear]

Sounds like it's worth checking out sometime.

Yeah, I think that it is. Be forwarned, though, it's proven to be divisive even among the most artsy of film fans, and has been described as "pretentious" and "impenetrable".

This clip should give you an idea of what it's like better than any trailer.

If you do decide to check it out, I would recommend watching one or more of Terrence Malick's other movies first to get a sense of his style. There are only four previous to The Tree of Life, and The Thin Red Line is available on Netflix instant.

[bigsleepj]

I really hated 'The Thin Red Line', but after seeing the trailer I'm willing to give 'The Tree of Life' a try. It certainly looks like a very good movie, so much that I wished it was out already. Somehow I'm more excited about this film than I have been for a film in a long time.

Alas, its only due here at the end of August.

[Cognitive Gear]

Christopher Nolan and David Fincher talk about Terrence Malick's work in a featurette just posted to the Apple Trailer Page.

[bigsleepj]

And here's an interesting essay on why 'slow' movies are awesome.

[Cognitive Gear]

The classical pieces used from the movie have been collected into a free to download soundtrack. This is legal as far as I know.

[bigsleepj]

The classical pieces used from the movie have been collected into a free to download soundtrack. This is legal as far as I know.

Thanks for this. The only piece of music I recognised from the trailer was Má Vlast: Vltava by Smetana, and I'm glad its actually used in the film. Now I only have to see the film. After hearing it used in the trailer, I think "Funeral March" by Patrick Cassidy (whom I'm wholly unacquainted with) is now one of my new classical favourites.

Now I just need to see the movie. I think I may be hyping it too much in my mind.

[Cognitive Gear]

Now I just need to see the movie. I think I may be hyping it too much in my mind.

It's quite possible that you are. Don't get me wrong, I loved it, but it definitely has it's problems. I just simply have a tendency to love things that are possibly over-ambitious, or things that show a struggle on the part of the artist to create a masterpiece. This movie is definitely both of those.

[bigsleepj]

It's quite possible that you are. Don't get me wrong, I loved it, but it definitely has it's problems.

Oh, trust me. Its more you than me. I've been hyping this movie since I saw the trailer a month ago. Hopefully I will be susceptible to it when August rolls around, but past experience have taught me that I'm setting myself up for disappointment, and its only my fault. But I can't control how I feel about wanting to experience good cinema.

I just simply have a tendency to love things that are possibly over-ambitious, or things that show a struggle on the part of the artist to create a masterpiece. This movie is definitely both of those.

There's nothing wrong with that tendency. It is admiral in a world being force-fed junkfood. Its better sometimes to admire that which aspires and fails at greatness than something that is good but not different.

Also, your statement reminds me of a quote by François Truffaut, who said: "I demand that a film express either the joy of making cinema or the agony of making cinema. I am not at all interested in anything in between]pulse[/B]."

Emphasis mine.

[Cognitive Gear]

There's nothing wrong with that tendency. It is admiral in a world being force-fed junkfood. Its better sometimes to admire that which aspires and fails at greatness than something that is good but not different.

Also, your statement reminds me of a quote by François Truffaut, who said: "I demand that a film express either the joy of making cinema or the agony of making cinema. I am not at all interested in anything in between]pulse[/B]."

Emphasis mine.

Good quote, and I am glad to hear that I am not the only one who feels this way.

Anyways, I saw this earlier and I couldn't help but to laugh:

Link to article.


I want to post this notice all over my art films.

[Radical Dreamer]

That notice is the best thing I've ever seen. XDD Though it's ridiculous they had to post it in the first place; shouldn't people at an art house theater be okay with a movie that doesn't follow a linear narrative? XD This is the sort of thing I would expect to see in my hometown, not an art theater. XDD

[Mr. SmartyPants]

Possible Spoiler alert.

Yeeeaaahh... I'll go ahead and be that guy. I saw it a couple of days ago, and I was pretty disappointed. I really did want to like it, but in the end I felt that it was exactly how some people describe it: Pretentious, and that the director tried too hard to be deep and poignant.

Objectively, the cinematography was, no question, expertly crafted. The acting was stellar. But the style I couldn't deal with. Characters do not need to wistfully and contemplatively stare into space so many times in a movie. Furthermore all the cosmic and pretty scenes were so drawn out. As purposeful as they may have been, I think they overstayed their welcome. I mean, I got the existential point. And it doesn't need to be dragged out.

No question that this film's style and message are directly intertwined with each other. The delivery of the message is also part of the message itself, I think. To get deeper (and at this point I'm sure there will be more polarizing disagreements here XD) I think that while it tried to show the fragile and transcendent concept of "existence" or "humanity", there was very little humanness to it. Even though that yes, we see a persons life through his or her experiences (Sean Penn's character) it felt far too objective for me to be truly human. In essence, it wasn't us experiencing Sean Penn's life and then relating it to the concept of existence as a whole, but rather a cold "objectivity's" experience of Sean Penn's life. And I think this is largely due to the style of the film. So basically I didn't see the inner soul of Sean Penn... well technically I did, but not it through his own humanness, but rather through a device that I felt was far too manufactured. An overly stylized and idealized perspective of existence, and tried to express humanness while not actually expressing a single human (i.e. It tries to. Or pretends to) thus lacking beauty.

Not sure if this is making any sense. I'm not sure if I even follow myself, to he honest. XD

So yeah. I was mega disappointed. Ambitious? Yeah definitely. But I think it also fell tremendously short. But I'm also glad I saw it. And I appreciate it for what it tried to do. That and I'm not going to be solid on my analysis, cause there's always more to chew on and think about.

[Radical Dreamer]

I think analyzing it in that way sort of misses the point of the entire movie. I'll spoiler this to avoid giving too much away. XD

[SPOILER]The scope of this movie is huge. Its focus is not only on Sean Penn's character, and I don't think that it has to be to make its point. I believe the film can be at least partially summed up in the verse from Job that was used at the beginning of the film--I actually thought the use of that verse helped to tie the entire film together. Yes, the movie is partially about Jack's (Sean Penn's character) loss of innocence as a child, as well as his attempts to return to his more innocent understanding of the world, but it's also about how we deal with suffering, how we relate to a good God who allows us to experience bad things, how we need to relinquish control over our lives to God, because we weren't there when He formed the earth and the stars. It's a beautiful story about surrender and letting go of our lives that never really were ours, and that's only part of it. I love the scene at the end where the mother finally says of her dead son, "I give him to you," because it showed such an understanding that life is a gift that we don't deserve, and our suffering is lightened when we're able to surrender our control over our circumstances to God.

The themes of grace vs. truth or law were even more prevalent and important to the film, and they were also beautifully rendered. I loved that the movie encouraged a balance of both grace and truth--when the father, or "law" was the main figure or out of control, the environment was too legalistic, and when the mother was the main figure, as Jack pointed out to her during a rebellious stage, she let his brothers run all over her. This theme was further portrayed by the curtains and the stairs. Many of the scenes focusing on the mother were full of billowing, free curtains, whereas many of the scenes focusing on the father showcased wooden, rigid stairs and ladders, signifying the father's belief in works-based religion, instead of grace. I thought it had some pretty poignant things to say along the way, as well.[/SPOILER]

Like I said, the movie covers an enormous scope, but that was the general take away for me. And based on that, I thought the film communicated those ideas extremely well. Maybe I just understand communication through images and metaphor more readily because that's how my brain works. It's less of a story than it is an experience (though there certainly is a story in there, it's just in no way linear or conventional), and honestly, if you could call a film "worship" (and I believe you can), that's what that film felt like to me.

Needless to say, I loved it. XD I would love to see it again before it leaves theaters. XD

[Mr. SmartyPants]

I should explain myself saying that when something is "existential", I don't refer strictly to the philosophical concept, rather letting it interchange with "humanness". And because for many people, the human condition incorporates God and figuring out how to understand God, all the aspects of faith in the movie, to me, fall under the scope of humanness. The concepts of God being in control and all the existential questions of why there is suffering in the world were all pretty obvious. So I'm already aware of the themes that the mom and dad encompass, grace vs nature, loss of innocence, etc. Those all fall within the purview of "humanness", which was the main theme of the movie. I'm saying for myself, it's difficult to express an idea of humanity (including concepts of grace, nature, law, etc) strictly by itself. It has to be in relation to a human (what's humanity without humans?) Which is where the film falls short.

Furthermore, I think I'm allowed to analyze the film how I want because it's a film worth the deeper analysis. It's a deep movie (at least it tries to, maybe. Still haven't decided) so I'm going to give it some deeper thought.

My point is that I think the film tries to encompass the concept of existence without the one essential reference point: the individual experience of existence. The movie tries to do this with the characters (especially Sean Penn) but the stylization of it really ruined it for me. There is a disconnect between the themes the movie presents with the expressions of said themes within the characters of the movie.

Think of it this way: It's like the movie took the concept of existence under a microscope, examined it, and wrote down its findings instead of speaking about existence from first-hand experience. I mean, the film does but I think they did a really poor job at it. Course this is entirely my own opinion because I didn't think the style of the movie aided in it at all.

I guess a more concrete example would be how the mother whispers "I give him to you". It's indicative of her pain of loss and then the ability for her to find healing and reassurance in life. But that whole part of the movie felt really tacked on (yet somehow still necessary). It lacked an expression of the individual's growth and the power the human spirit (with or without God/faith/religion). So while it showed "her healing" (noun), I felt that film didn't express her path of healing, if that makes any sense. And maybe the director intentionally left that out. But nonetheless it felt really out of place.

Now, this is all given by how I internalize, process, and understand concepts. And I'm pretty sure I do so differently than both you or Phil (e.g. Personality types, I'm an NF vs NT etc etc, blah blah blah psychology mumbo jumbo) so I don't speak objectively. I am saying that for me, speaking anything about the human condition requires a reference point of a deep expression of a human. That and also because I process things externally (i.e. I think while talking instead of thinking first and then talking), my posts here are basically me trying to process the movie out as opposed to firmly stating a position or opinion.

[ShiroiHikari]

Good quote, and I am glad to hear that I am not the only one who feels this way.

Anyways, I saw this earlier and I couldn't help but to laugh:

Link to article.


I want to post this notice all over my art films.

So I haven't seen this movie but that right there is one of the best things I've seen all week. Who in the heck demands a refund because they didn't like a film? It's not like the theatre made it. Also LOL at people going to see movies totally blind at an ARTHOUSE THEATRE and then walking out when it's too "weird". Is this an arthouse theatre in Smalltown, USA or something?

[bigsleepj]

Its 11:48 in the evening and I'm going to bed, but I just saw the movie. Viewing it was emotionally and physically draining, I don't think its a complete masterpiece and I believe it could have been shorter but I think that despite its faults (and the fact that much in terms of symbolism and characterization went over my head all the way to France) it is a very good, fascinating, exceptional movie. That is all. Good night.

[Cognitive Gear]

Its 11:48 in the evening and I'm going to bed, but I just saw the movie. Viewing it was emotionally and physically draining, I don't think its a complete masterpiece and I believe it could have been shorter but I think that despite its faults (and the fact that much in terms of symbolism and characterization went over my head all the way to France) it is a very good, fascinating, exceptional movie. That is all. Good night.

I meant to respond to this ages ago. I am glad that you liked it. I really look forward to seeing it again, myself, and it's basically a given that I will drop the extra cash for the inevitably over-priced blu-ray. Months later, I still think of it from time to time.