This summer has had its highs and lows at the movies. To recap, Bridesmaids made the phrase “chick-flick” null and void with its raunchy and laugh out loud humor thanks to Kristen Wiig while Transformers: Dark of the Moon had instilled my spite towards Michael Bay by not only selling senselessness at the box office, but by bastardizing a classic Pink Floyd album by putting it in the title of the movie, sans “Side”. What’s next? Transformers: Exile on Street?
Leonard Cohen wrote “there is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in” and that “light” is in the form of Terrence Malick’s new film The Tree of Life. Winner of this year’s Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, Tree of Life has been praised and griped by critics and audiences. Prior to seeing this film, I read Joyce’s “Ulysses”, which is one of the epic books with a stream-of-consciousness prose that eclipses the simplistic story of the lives of three Dubliners within the course of one day. I mention “Ulysses” as a comparison to Malick’s The Tree of Life; a sprawling epic of visual and aural proportions, which overshadows the simplistic story of the life of a family in 1950s Waco, Texas. Both works of art are difficult to get through, yet astonishing and memorable.
Brad Pitt gives one of his finest performances as a stern father, who rules over his three sons with a mentality that resembles the “survival of the fittest” rhetoric of Darwin mixed with the reality of a failed inventor like something out of Miller’s “Death of a Salesman”. Jessica Chastain is angelic as the mother who tends to the mental wounds inflicted by her husband with grace and beauty to the point that a subtle, oedipal complex is established between her and her eldest son, Jack (Hunter McCracken). These memories of childhood are revisited by Jack in the form of Sean Penn, who plays a Houston architect haunted by the death of one of his brothers. Although he has minimal time onscreen, Penn squeezes out every second with a visual presence that mirrors that of Marcello Mastroianni in 8 ½.
The narrative is spatial as you are on a trip from Texas to the outer reaches of the universe. The shifts in time are almost as profound and ethereal as Kubrick’s visual style of 2001: A Space Odyssey. This comparison is no stretch since Douglas Trumball (the visual effects supervisor to 2001) worked closely with Malick on The Tree of Life. The Kubrick comparison extends to the stedicam work of Emmanuel Lubezki as it closely resembles that of the floating camera in The Shining without the horror and claustrophobic atmosphere. Alexandre Desplat’s score beautifully segues between the music of Bach and ominous choral pieces in the similar nature of Kubrick’s use of Legiti and Strauss in 2001.
The summer isn’t over yet, but The Tree of Life remains one of the best films of the season and is sure to be praised as one of the best films of the year. Next to Kubrick, Malick is hailed for his meticulous detail, his precision, and being a reclusive visionary. Only his fifth film in a career that has spanned almost 40 years, Malick’s The Tree of Life cements his role as one of the most enigmatic, philosophical, and thought-provoking filmmakers.
3 1/2 out of 4 Stars
