TREE OF LIFE Pre-Release Discussion - Page 2

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Originally Posted by Chris Spider 

Forgive me, but are there still dinosaurs here, for those who have seen it? The mix of suburban drama and DINOSAURS is one of the things that intrigued me the most.

Well, technically speaking, didn't "The New World" have CGI dinosaurs in it too? 

Anyhow, there's no way I'd go to a movie that (and this is just via the trailers that focus on the family, ok?) sounds a whole awful lot like it might dissolve into a rain of "Why didn't you love me daddy?!?" cliche's.  BUT, (this is clearly a big "but") the idea of measuring one human life against the whole history of life on Earth, and the "the World is just awesome" images we've been teased so far both make me want to see this movie *yesterday*. 

My concern, then, is kind of an odd one so I'm hoping someone who has seen the film can assure me of something.  My great fear is that "Tree of Life" is going to give us the "Fantasia" History of the Earth (first the Earth forms, then suddenly there are dinosaurs, then they obligingly go extinct to make way for humans).  I can't express how deeply disappointed I would be if that is the case.  Please tell me it isn't; I want to see the creatures of the Cambrian get some love for once.

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Originally Posted by TragicTheDragon 

Well, technically speaking, didn't "The New World" have CGI dinosaurs in it too? 

 

Anyhow, there's no way I'd go to a movie that (and this is just via the trailers that focus on the family, ok?) sounds a whole awful lot like it might dissolve into a rain of "Why didn't you love me daddy?!?" cliche's.  BUT, (this is clearly a big "but") the idea of measuring one human life against the whole history of life on Earth, and the "the World is just awesome" images we've been teased so far both make me want to see this movie *yesterday*. 

 

My concern, then, is kind of an odd one so I'm hoping someone who has seen the film can assure me of something.  My great fear is that "Tree of Life" is going to give us the "Fantasia" History of the Earth (first the Earth forms, then suddenly there are dinosaurs, then they obligingly go extinct to make way for humans).  I can't express how deeply disappointed I would be if that is the case.  Please tell me it isn't; I want to see the creatures of the Cambrian get some love for once.

The dinosaur sequence in this film is maybe 70 seconds long and contains no T-rex battles or anything like that.  And yep, they are all wiped out off-screen by an asteroid.

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Originally Posted by Ratty 

It's also the most heartfelt and genuinly spiritual movie I think I've ever seen.  Leave your cynicism at the door, or the film will not work for you at all.

Nothing is more irritating about reviews for TREE OF LIFE than comments like this one. They seem to amount to "Either you like this film or you're an ass."

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Originally Posted by Agentsands77 

Nothing is more irritating about reviews for TREE OF LIFE than comments like this one. They seem to amount to "Either you like this film or you're an ass."

It's sort of true.

I was talking with a blockheaded friend of mine who disiked the film because he wasn't feeling an "emotional" connection. Which is narcissistic, in that he meant to say he didn't see HIMSELF in the film or the characters. It's like saying there's no emotional attachment in 2001. It's an irrelevant criticism borne out of the refusal to tear oneself down before they enter this film, to let it wash over you. After the first half hour, you have to understand what this film is doing, and realize it can't be judged on the same merits of of a more traditional movie experience.

Can't someone reasonably watch it, take the film on its own terms, and still suggest the film comes up short? Folks like Robert Koehler, Jonathan Rosenbaum, and Doug Cummings? Or Alejandro Adams? These are articulate, knowledgeable people, and their critiques of TREE OF LIFE are incisive and intelligent. I've yet to see many of the films' admirers really respond with the same acuity and clarity.

Take, for example, Doug Cumming's comments about the film:

Several critics have used the term "kitsch" to describe it, and I strongly concur. The argument that "one must experience and appreciate this work emotionally rather than critically" is one that is regularly adopted by adherents of kitsch to explain why, say, Norman Rockwell or Thomas Kinkaide must be appreciated. "Don't think about it, just enjoy it!" So much of this movie was immediately recognizable, it could've come straight out of any corporate "green energy" commercial (happy people dancing in sprinklers in manicured lawns), New Age posters with "cosmic" visuals and flying orcas (no orcas in this film, but Mrs. O'Brien does waft aloft), and any high-tech nature/space imagery since Cosmos.

Milan Kundera offered a famous definition of kitsch: "Kitsch causes two tears to flow in quick succession. The first tear says: How nice to see the children running in the grass! The second tear says: How nice to be moved, together with all mankind, by children running in the grass! It is the second tear which makes kitsch kitsch." It's also the operative context for this entire film. Yes, one can take the images at face value and bask in their warmth and recognizability, and perhaps even draw a powerful emotional experience from it. But that doesn't make it great art; it doesn't challenge or stretch or enlarge our understanding of ourselves or the world we live in.

For me, the film lacked a crucial sense of awe. For all its nonlinear construction and unexpected juxtapositions, it always had a feeling of familiarity and obviousness. The sense of uncanny symmetry or unusual beauty we associate with Kubrick or Tarkovsky (or even earlier Malick works) simply wasn't there; it all seemed demonstrative, reaching for effect. (What does it say about a film that the only way it creates suspense is to tease us with children playing with deadly objects?) The handheld camerawork even grows monotonous with its constant wide-angled voluptuousness; there's little sense of shaping or modulating the visual information; it lacks any dynamics. Even the cosmic imagery, with its billowing vapors and fluids (inspired by the much more profound work of Jordan Belson) lacked a sense of mystery--its organization seemed strangely literal; as if we should be surprised or moved to contemplation by gazing at a meteor slowly receding towards the earth after the film depicts the age of dinosaurs; as if every oceanic documentary in recent memory hasn't equated hundreds of glowing jellyfish to stars in the universe.

It may be mistaken, but that's not brainless, blockheaded criticism.

It's by no means an unreasonable critique or position. In fact, it would be a much much more measured version of similar points making up my explanation of why it did not, to me, feel transcendent. "Kitsch" though, is a rough argument, as...

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Originally Posted by Agentsands77 

it doesn't challenge or stretch or enlarge our understanding of ourselves or the world we live in.

...is not correct. Those are exactly the things the film does. Or at least strives to do in a more-than-observational manner.
 

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Originally Posted by Renn Brown 
Those are exactly the things the film does. Or at least strives to do in a more-than-observational manner.

I don't think Doug is at all denying the film's attempts on that score. Just its success.

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Originally Posted by Agentsands77 

Nothing is more irritating about reviews for TREE OF LIFE than comments like this one. They seem to amount to "Either you like this film or you're an ass."

I should have phrased it better, because that was totally not my intention to get all snooty.  I think that this particular film does straddle the line between artistic and potentially insufferable (a line I feel Malick leapfrogged many times in THIN RED LINE), and that either you are instantly put off by his style or you work with it.  Didn't mean to imply that those who work with it automatically have to declare it a masterpiece, even if that's the way I'm certainly leaning.  I just have a bunch of anecdotal evidence of peoples' eyes glazing over as soon as I try to explain what the film is about. 

(Haven't read reviews, sorry if this is repetitive)

I hate the idea of "a la carte" movies, of playing "what if?" and wondering out loud about whether slicing out large chunks of a movie would improve it. But seeing how Malick did just this with The Thin Red Line, maybe a little grace can be granted.

I found myself doing that a little with the "history of life in the universe" scenes, only because Malick succeeds so well with the Pitt storyline at eliciting emotional responses from the audience using almost no traditional narrative scenes. Using nothing but moments, playing off each other like memories do, he creates an emotionally complete portrait of a family, of boyhood, of parenting, than I've seen in a long time. There are no false notes in that narrative.

It's his "swinging for the fences" stuff that takes things to another level but, sadly, loses a chunk of the audience. I liked seeing the first (?) moment a living thing treated another living thing with compassion, seeing grace evolve next to nature in that river bed where Pitt's kids would play thousands of years later. This is not a subtle film! (I was teasing my wife with the "dinosaur paw move" all night - (Laying hand on her head) "Nature." (remove hand) "Grace." While we were doing that I realized Malick had already made this a recurring thing in the film, with Pitt palming his kids' heads the whole movie.)

But that framing device (as well as Penn's - what year are the Penn scenes supposed to be taking place?) don't feel fully formed to me. I wonder if they're the victims of time cuts. I want to know more. I want to see it again. It's an imperfect and at times amazing film.

I think one of the reasons people don't find the end satisfying is because it's supposed to be evocative of some kind of a loss.  The world of Penn's upbringing, like the world we see form in the opening sequences, full of wonder and horrifying nature, is lost and has moved on.  Penn's character finds catharsis in the end, but it's brought on by the death of his brother (and possibly, I suspect, his mother...my theory is that when we first see him, he's just learned of his mothers death). And I don't thing the last scenes with him going to the beach are meant to be taken literally; this is the fantasy of an architect who longs for simpler times.  It's telling that there are no buildings or man made things in that final sequence, yet the last shot of the movie is a giant bridge (perhaps one that Penn's character has designed)?  This seems unusual for Malick (his last two films have specifically ended with shots of nature), and he seems to be suggesting that if the grace of the world is lost, finding beauty (and, in a sense, grace) in human nature is all we have left, and Penn's character seems to be able to do that through what he does in the film (remembering his childhood, thinking back to the dawn of life).  The final scenes are Penn's imagination, not Malick's, and if they allow him to reach some kind of vision of what the end will be like that puts him at ease, then the context of the beginning of the movie (life is created) and the end (imagined death leads to grace) allow all the pieces to fit together as a complete whole.  That's how I look at it anyway. 

INSCRUTABLE!

That's what I said to Nexus-7 as the film's credits rolled.  I certainly can't say I 'got' this film.  I even had a rough time of staying engaged by the 'origin of life' stretch of the film and dozed off until Nexus gave me a nudge to wake me up for its 'boyhood' stretch.  From then on the film had me and I was able to just let it wash over me.  I doubt this film will be topped in terms of visual beauty this year.

Basically, I feel about the way Phil felt about the film.

Great thoughts, Parker.

I've only seen The Thin Red Line prior from Malick, and that was maybe a month or two ago. So, i'm still relatively new to his style.

I almost kinda want to do a double feature with this and Enter The Void. If only I knew that it wouldn't inevitably lead to my untimely drug-fueled suicide.

Those two films are mirrors though. One sees life as ultimately pointless, mundane, and inescapably, nihilistically cyclical. Tree of Life is still pretty damned cynical, in that God is either non-existent, or not answering. It does, however, sees life itself as the journey, and there being beauty and meaning in all of it, even if it's fleeting. The whole thing about mother and father being the faces of God to a child writ large. Both films end up seeking out the abstract to make that point, however, in exceedingly gorgeous fashion. I'm still so very thankful I lucked out, and found the one Digital 4K theater in the area showing this. Can't imagine seeing this in anything less than perfection.

And just like Enter The Void, I'm still unsure whether all that makes it a good film or not. It certainly evoked the visceral awe that Malick wanted in me. It hit the emotional notes for the most part. But that's such a subjective reaction, and I can't imagine, well made or not, the movie working with cynicism of any kind as the go-to stance for the viewer, and I'm loath to blame the film for that in any way. The big picture material--the universe forming and whatnot--is objectively spectacular, but it requires the leap to make the connection between the big grace, the big nature, and the small grace, the small nature. And that's not something the film can put together for the viewer, without hitting the nail so far on the head it becomes ridiculous. Malick asks a lot from the audience in that respect, especially judging from the 6 walkouts my theater had

Those that run with it though are in for a pretty awesome experience.

I would have to say that this is probably a poor introduction to Malick, judging from the reaction of the folks I went to see the movie with who just couldn't get a handle on the film's lack of narrative cohesion.  In fact, I went to see the film at one of the art house cinemas here in town, so it's safe to say this wasn't a crowd that wandered in having seen Brad Pitt's name on the marquee.  Nevertheless, by the time the credits rolled, probably half the people in the theater were either asleep or had mentally checked out.  

As for me, I liked it overall.  I saw it more than a week ago and it has certainly stuck with me.  Having said that, I think it embodies the best, but also the worst qualities of Malick's films.  The whole first act of the film in particular felt indulgent.  It presented some interesting ideas I thought about how there can be good in a world in which nature (natural selection, human nature, nature as a force unto itself) would seem to preclude its existence.  That was my take on it anyway.  But that entire portion of the film just seemed to belong in an entirely different movie.  I don't know, maybe some people felt this tied in perfectly with the rest of the film, but I found those ties to be tenuous at best and thought those themes would have been better served with a more subtle touch.  

While the film left me unsatisfied with its handling of these grander themes, I thought it really found its groove once the focus shifted to experiencing the world through the eyes of the main child and examining through that prism his relationship with his father.  I thought the film was unique in the way that it depicted childhood, both through its episodic structure and by confronting its audience with the same uncertainty that its protagonist is faced with.  

Then came the ending and the film lost me again.  When I left the theater my reaction had veered much more toward the negative.  As I said, however, the film has stuck with me, and I would now characterize it as a qualified success.  To use a basketball analogy, I would say Malick goes for the three and misses, but gets the rebound and sinks the layup.