I had been looking forward to seeing ‘The Tree of Life’ for quite some time now, after all, the trailer was fairly exceptional and quite a few people have been saying that it will be Terrence Malick’s masterpiece.
I ended up seeing it at a local art-house theater in the North Bay last night and was less than blown away by the end of the viewing. My main suggestion regarding the film is simply this: Don’t believe the hype.
Thematically, ‘Tree of Life’ does tackle some interesting ground. I do believe that there is room in the film industry for movies that attempt to take on the more grandiose, philosophical questions of life. To its credit, it certainly does seem to make an effort in this regard. Unfortunately, its examination of these themes falls flat. Personally, I love to think about big picture ideas and philosophy, and I have a lot of respect for films that are able to change or add to my worldview in some way. ‘Tree of Life’ is one of those films that made me feel like I walked away from the theater dumber than when I went in.
That’s not to say that it’s entirely without its positives. The film does at least attempt to tackle an impressive swath of thematic ground. Meaningful questions are raised in fairly compelling ways, and for that, the film does deserves some credit. Some of those questions include: How much parental discipline is too much? What is the best way to raise children? How can a family cope with the loss of a child? How do children end up like their parents? What happens when we die? How can we best live our lives in order to be happy? Why does evil exist? Does God care about us? Does God exist?
Another positive of ‘Tree of Life’ is the impressively sweeping cinematography. Out of the over two-hour running time, I’d estimate that nearly an hour of screen time doesn’t have any human cast in it at all. Rather, it displays panoramic shots of nature in all its varietals: blue oceans, lush forests, vacant deserts, frozen tundras, volcanoes, dozens of celestial events. All of this scenery is captured brilliantly; it’s a pleasure to watch.
Despite these positives, ‘Tree of Life’ loses its way when it comes to telling its central narrative. Even calling it a narrative is being generous, it has much less of a traditional plot than a sort of stream-of-consciousness style depiction of random moments from one family. Worse still, Tree of Life does a poor job of answering any of the central questions it poses, instead settling for a vague notion of heaven with pervasively religious undertones throughout the film.
‘Tree of Life’ begins with a series of extremely abstract sequences. For around twenty minutes or so, just long enough to make the viewer start to be concerned that the whole film might be this way, we’re shown montages from outer space overlaid with vaguely philosophical, whispered voiceovers.
Whispered dialogue: “Brother. Where did you go?”
One thing that struck me throughout the movie was how Malick seemed almost desperate to fill up sequences with nearly overpowering music. There is no quiet vacuum of space in this film, instead the viewer is subjected to shrill operatic vocals at every turn.
Contrast that to the opening sequence of a film like Contact, which wasn’t afraid to directly examine the sheer beauty and magnitude of seemingly empty space.
In stark contrast, Malick seems to want nothing to do with the universe being empty.
In the opening scenes, we learn that the family matriarch has lost a child, and is struggling with what appears to be overwhelming grief. However, we don’t know anything about her family yet, and we won’t find out anything else about them for at least another half an hour.
During that time, we proceed through a slow sequence of the evolution of life on Earth. We see the oceans churning over top of molten lava. We see the formation of the first cells from bubbles in the water. We see mitosis and the gradual evolution of multi-cellular organisms. For a while, I thought we might see the entirety of evolution leading all the way up to Brad Pitt, but instead Malick goes with punctuated equilibrium. There is a quick transition from schools of jellyfish to there suddenly being massive dinosaurs roaming the planet.
With what seems like a strong grounding in evolutionary science, the viewer might be led to believe that the whole thematic analysis would also remain equally grounded in reality. Sadly, this is not the case.
Once we do make it back to the Pitt family, which is the only way I know to refer to them since I don’t think any of the family members actually have names, they are raising three kids in an archetypal small American town in the 1950′s. There is a lot of lawn care (including stroking the grass,) rope swings and bicycle riding. Everything you would expect from a film set in this time period.
We are told right from the start that life philosophies are to be divided into two camps: One philosophy is grace; the other is nature. Grace rises above all conflict and negativity; it is forgiving and loving. Whereas Nature is selfish, and aims to control, even through force if necessary.
Brad Pitt’s character embodies the “nature” side of this equation. He is the warm but controlling patriarch of the family, but often doles out more discipline than unconditional love to his three sons. Jessica Chastain, the families’ mother, embodies grace. She is loving towards her children to a fault, although not quite adept at controlling the three young boys.
We spend most of the film with their family, watching various moments in their lives. The life of the youngest boy is mostly ignored; we spend the majority of our time focusing on the oldest and middle children. The oldest, who will eventually age into Sean Penn, and the middle son, who we know will die from the opening sequence, both give compelling performances.
Whispered dialogue: How do I get back there?
Mainly due to a lack of screen time, Sean Penn doesn’t get a chance to do much actual acting. If he did, it was mostly edited out. His parts consist mostly of looking bewildered, turning around in a circle, looking bewildered some more, staring pensively out a window, standing on an elevator, and so on. His character exists solely as a vehicle through which childhood memories are channeled, but is never actually developed enough to add anything to the film.
It’s unfortunate that Sean Penn’s character doesn’t bring anything of importance to the story. All we can really glean is the sad realization that the child the film focuses on will eventually turn into a very depressed looking adult. There was potential there to really get to know his character better as an adult, but we never do.
All in all, there are quite a few missed opportunities like that one in Tree of Life, and that’s partially what makes the film so frustrating. There are dozens of gaping holes in the narrative. Perhaps these are meant to be left to the the viewer to fill in the blanks, but instead it tends to make the film simply seem vague and mishandled rather than profound.
For instance, we never get to know how the boy dies. For that matter, we never even get to see him age; all the sequences are shot when the middle son is either an infant or a ten-year-old. What was he like when he was fourteen, sixteen, or eighteen? What was happening in his life before he went to war, where we presume he died? So much time is spent on nature shots at the expense of the actual stories of the main characters.
In fact, the narrative is so vague that the viewer isn’t even entirely sure which child dies. We would assume it was the middle child, only because he was focused on so much during the film, and because Sean Penn looks more like the oldest son with dark hair. But this is never clearly stated.
What happens to the parents? They were profiled so thoroughly, then so carelessly disregarded. Did the mother actually end up happier with her life because she lived with grace? Did the father end up worse off for trying to control everything? What happened to the youngest brother?
We’re faced with the stark horror of a child dying, and we see a brother who is unable to cope with it because it was outside of his control. He can’t stop thinking about him, even decades later.
The real philosophical fight here is not between nature versus grace, but rather between control versus acceptance. Obviously, if one can’t accept that someone they loved died decades ago, it has the potential to haunt them endlessly and negatively influence their life. As difficult as reaching acceptance can be, people do move on.
In order to dress this up, Malick ritualizes acceptance. He turns catharsis into a human sacrifice to an invisible deity. Mere acceptance isn’t enough, it has to be labeled grace.
Whispered dialogue: I give you my son.
Tree of Life is less of a film than a sort of experiment in visual meditation. Unfortunately, the viewer is left with more questions than answers. In fact, there isn’t really even an genuine attempt towards trying to find answers. While there are a few striking moments in the film, it mostly feels like a missed opportunity to tell a genuine, heart-felt story, eclipsed by psudeo-intellectualism and overly simplistic philosophy.
Where is his brother now? As is the case with much the film, the answer we’re finally provided isn’t nearly as profound as it tries to seem.
