The enigmatic Terrence Malick strikes again. I watched this last weekend at the Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor, amidst a decently populated house. The majority of the audience came to see a new Brad Pitt and/or Sean Penn film, and were wholly unprepared for what was in store. Well, really, we all were. Even with my knowledge and experience of Malick's previous works, I sheltered myself from the hype enough that I wasn't sure where he was taking me on this particular trip.
It turns out that he was making the film that his entire career has been building up to - the summation of all of his works, spanning from the dawn of time to the land beyond death. I'm fascinated to see where he goes from here, because I would be shocked if he were able to go bigger. But hey. . . Kubrick followed up 2001 with A Clockwork Orange, so. . . Is it time for Malick to do his Richard III? We'll just have to wait and see. (He's already been filming a new movie, starring Ben Affleck, but as per usual no one knows what it's really about.)
A lot of directors use fast-paced editing, and I usually hate it. I like my films to be fairly "neat" in construction, and a film moving at the speed of a freight train is often jarring to me, and lacking emotional heft. Some few, great directors pull it off nicely - the aforementioned Kubrick with Clockwork; Scorsese with The Departed - and Malick uses his editing in a similarly unique way. He shows us snippets of scenes, traces of intimate moments; and besides the plot of this film, it's that element I believe people find the hardest to wrap their heads around. The point is this. . . Each moment in the characters lives are like pieces of a puzzle; pieces which, when placed end to end, are revealed as parts of a greater truth. In Tree, we're watching a man's life flash before his eyes. But not only his life - also everything that led to his creation, and every consequence of his decisions thereafter.
As I've said before - you don't watch Malick for the narrative. He's a poet, using the cinema in its purest possible form. Not only is this my favorite film of the year so far, but its my favorite that I've seen since Where The Wild Things Are.
ECSTATIC ABOUT
I could only watch this movie up until the dinosaurs.....I had no clue where it was going. I didn't have the patience to sit through it. But I just wondered what the hell it was supposed to mean. Thanks for explaining this to me.
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