The Tree Of Life (2011)

In 1978, fresh off the critical adoration that his latest film Days Of Heaven had harvested, director Terrence Malick was feeling the burden of immense expectations. The film was a potential prophecy, regarded by many at the time as the finest ‘silent’ film since the advent of the talkies, channeling techniques pioneered by the likes of Griffith, Murnau and Von Stroheim, a conspicious approach to filmmaking that concentrated on ambiance and mood, a recoil against the transgressions of his peers cinematic stylings. His proposed next project was an enormously ambitious work that was initially designed as a multi-character drama framed against the carnage of World War I, an elaborate enterprise with a mystical prologue embedded in prehistoric times. Over a few weeks of pre-production planning and location scouting this project – now hesitantly titled as Q – the film gestated into an even more desirous vision, with the World War I material ejected in favour of an expansion of the ancient exordium, inserting a minotaur figure slumbering in the primordial depths, darkly dreaming about the evolution of the universe and the gradual succession of cell to plant to dinosaur then man, a metaphorical odyssey through time that the celebrated playwright Sam Shepard (the capitalist landowner in Heaven) branded as ‘absolutely brilliant but virtually unfilmable’ after he had sight of the 250 page script. Like The New World, 2005’s quivering transformation of the Pocahontas myth into a poetic mediation on the clash of history and civilisation, of the natural with the rational which was also marinating in Malick’s brain back in the fertile 1970’s, central elements and leitmotifs appear to have been resuscitated from Q and channeled  into his polarizing new film The Tree of Life, the winner of this years prestigious Palme d’Or, a modern masterpiece or pretentious parable, depending on your ecclesiastical principles.

Three narrative strands intertwine and refract upon other, in the first and most autobiographic stream seen in any of his films to date (Malick grew up in the Texan badlands in the Fifties, the second son of a stern oil executive) we are witness to the fragmented recollections of our recently bereaved protagonist Jack (Sean Penn, appropriately distant), his examination of his childhood in middle 20th century America, a suspended, ethereal, magical dominion forged through the citadel figures of his stern and authoritative father (Brad Pitt, superb) representing the way of nature  and his porcelain, seraphim mother (newcomer Jessica Chastain, incredible) epitomizing the way of grace. These recollections, these pellucid grasps at time lost and memories near abandoned are embroidered by some absolutely ravishing photography of interstellar constellations, of primeval vistas, of soaring creation  and plunging mortality  – yes I can confidently reveal that this is the first time the cinema has matched the cosmic vision enshrined at the climax of 2001: A Space Odyssey* – establishing a phenomenal cinema experience that is all parts of mystifying and seductive on a galactic scale.

What an extraordinary film. Expectations were alpine of course, after five years of patience and being a self-confessed Malick acolyte I was anxiously expecting another triumph, and with a few minor quibbles a magnificent piece of work has been realised. The shooting style of the film is fascinating, the hand-held articulation, the off kilter framing, the fragmented editing tenor, they all contribute to a mental adoption of Jack’s internal monologue, the shards of memories that are being transmitted through a cartography of his consciousness. Malick is renowned for his unusual approach to filming, he is uninterested in the usual blocking of a scene, of capturing the dialogue and images in the traditional manner, forging an impressionistic succession of images which ebb and flow throughout the three strands of the movie. Pitt is proof positive that when offered the material he can be outstanding (see also The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford) and Jessica Chastain clasps a beguiling, gossamer beauty, but the real revelation here are the three children, all non-professional actors that took the production team three years to secure, their naturalistic, powerful performances are pitch perfect, in particular Hunter McCracken as the adolescent Jack with his glowering, frustrated reactions to his fathers obscured authority. Perhaps it’s the general tone of the piece but you never consider them as actors, they just are, intrinsic figurines in the films tableaux as the camera dances and weaves around them in a quiet, rapturous joy;

The impressionistic inserts that have been weaved into the film amongst its non-linear narrative have left me utterly fascinated, they elevate the film from the standard fable template into the realms of magical realism, with glimpses of this incorporate cognition fusing with the nature of memory and imagination, a cinematic representation of reminiscence that is fascinatingly eloquent. It is some of these qualities that have led to certain critics abandoning the film, the lack of a tactile recital which is more foregrounded in Badlands and Heaven  provoking them into antipathy, a judgement I can process but honestly it’s the same old hypocrisy, when a filmmaker pushes into new waters (in a mainstream, studio financed and star populated vehicle no less) the backlash is depressingly familiar from the same individuals who are happy to pout and complain about the increasing formulaic nature of contemporary product. That’s not to say the film is incredible by simple virtue of its experimental design – I have some issues with The Tree Of Life  that we’ll come too shortly –  but it is so refreshing to see something so radical, so visionary, so ambitious and ultimately so moving under the banner of a major studio, much as I try my best to boycott the activities of the Murdoch empire I will acquiesce to seeing Fox financed movies so yeah, I’m a fraud. I am actually shocked that Malick manages to get the capital to make the films that have comprised the second stage of his career considering their poor economic returns, whether it is a success or failure rests with the viewer of course but even the opponents of the film must concur that when framed in silhouette to the coetaneous Hollywood system it is titanic in its ecumenical grasp. Besides, the best one sentence synopsis of the film I’ve sourced is ‘This…this looks like someone rammed Koyaanisqatsi into Mad Men via a particle accelerator’ although I’m not sure if that’s a positive or negative opinion, if you’ll forgive the pun.

The 22 minute sequence of….well, it’s a montage of everything is proof positive that Douglas Trumbull as the consultant SFX creative is a genius of his craft – and I use that word advisedly as a pioneer and unsurpassed, instinctive, envelope pushing figure in his field of expertise – whom has achieved  the equal of his earlier work with many of the greatest directors of the past half century. Those colossal panoramas are awe-inspiring as you can see at the foot of this review, on the big screen the empyrean strings of Smetana, Gorecki, Holst, Respighi, Mahler, Bach, Berlioz, Couperin, Brahms, John Tavener and Zbigniew Preisner to name but a few, they coax forward an elegiac majesty which is miraculous to behold. The ridiculed dinosaur scene has stuck with me and I thought it was provocative rather than absurd, it’s just so unusual to see our kindred planets precursor in such a way, not aggressively hunting down delicious prey with a deafening roar, it has provoked me to speculate on exactly why are they so fascinating to children and some adults, there must be something else going on there. Accompanying these movements is perhaps the most unique sequence in  the film, a montage of Jack moving from birth to adolescence, advancing through the early phases of his life in an astonishing chain of images and effigies that is one of the most remarkable pieces of cinema I have seen in years, an achievement which demands a repeat viewing on its anomalous strength alone. Malick formulates his films by shooting most material during the  magic hour, ensuring that they are immortalised in a period of flux, between light and day, awarding them an alchemical texture which tangles instinctively with the romantic impulses of his intoxicating, semiopaque style of storytelling. It never fails to amaze me that directors like Malick and Kubrick – yes I know, I’m finally pulling him into this discussion at last –  have this reputation as perfectionist, control freak artisans when their working methods are anything but. They insist on improvisation, they demand spontaneity, always seeking, always searching for that elusive spark of inspiration through chance.   

Broadening the discussion out a little to encompass the reclusive magician’s wider career I noted that The Tree Of Life is  the first – and this I’m sure is worth noting – it is the first time that Malick has captured contemporary life throughout his entire forty-year pilgrimage, given that everything else he has crafted have been period defined pieces. Jack’s current disconnection, his isolation illustrated through wide-angle lenses in the capitalist cathedrals of some non-specific Western city is the closest that Malick has come to any sort of existent opinion, to date he has prefered hermetically sealed texts in which to explore his philosophical musings. It also the first of his films that doesn’t offer a tragic, doomed romance, even his war epic The Thin Red Line has a moment where Ben Chaplin’s character receives word that his beloved wife cannot bear their separation and is seeking empathy and companionship through alternative channels. Speaking of alternative channels, if anyone can point me in the direction of snaring a copy of this, a film that Malick wrote but was never released, I’d be eternally grateful – apparently it surfaces on US cable TV from time to time. A full viewing of this would also put me in nirvana.

On a first viewing I did think it was a little too long and ten, maybe fifteen minutes could have been trimmed from the middle cadence, a sacrilegious opinion perhaps but I saw this on a cool, balmy Friday evening, encumbered with some of the more immediate mortal concerns rattling around my head after another brutal week of work, and it didn’t help that as much I enjoy the Notting Hill Picturehouse experience their sound system was not aligned to the aural crescendos of the cosmic sequences which resulted in some distorted feedback, a deficiency that pinched me out of the picture from time to time. Also some of the symbolism, particularly in the films final zenith was a little too direct, a little too on the nose for me but these are minor quibbles and this is unquestionably a major work from one of the most fascinating and visually gifted directors operating today   – just note how the very first sequence of The New World, in two shots (one framed to the earth, the other the sky) encapsulates that entire films abiding tempos and collisions;

The evolution of a master filmmaker is fascinating to witness. Throughout his five films Malick  has moved further away from narrative and realism to the impressionistic and conspectus, having finally gleaned some details through a Sight & Sound interview with his brilliant, master cinematographer Emmanuelle Lubezki about his next film – covertly known as  ‘Project D’ – its in the editing phase and is allegedly even more hypothetical and abstract than his previous hymns. We live in cynical, commerce driven times. Some of the reactions that the film has suffered is a result of this I think, with criticisms such as it being a $30 million perfume advert bandied freely about in the stratosphere. I’d counter that it’s just so rare to see a film so unashamedly spiritual, so openly wearing its heart on its sleeve, with the perpetual movement of the camera around the marionettes and their landscapes, the ellipses of the planets and elysium oceans,  the undulating flocks of avians that mirror the sprawling, incomprehensible complexity of existence, all these provoke a near beautific experience which is truly transcendental. Everyone with a soul who walks into this film with an open mind will find something comforting to come away with, it demands some investment from its audience, and if you’re of a like mind then I promise you it will pay heavenly, immolating dividends. A celestial rhapsody, a symphony of mortality, like the weirding rays of a dying sunset scattering across a nourishing stream, The Tree Of Life is a potent reminder that although we’re all crouching in the gutter, some of us are gazing at the stars;

*Anyone who been visiting here awhile will realise that this is praise that is not given lightly.

July 10, 2011 | Categories: Current Affairs, Film, London | Tags: Brad Pitt, Cinema, Film, malick, Movies, sean penn, Tree Of Life | 1 Comment