Terrence Malick, the mostly reclusive and often interview-shy director of Badlands, Days of Heaven, and The New World, returns with his latest opus, Tree of Life, a veritable treatise on the inner-workings of the American Family and the mainstays of the 1950’s era. He delves into the interpersonal relationships between father and son, more pointedly the cycle of expectation and regret that follows the two at the center of his latest film.
It’s set as a soft-focus, poignant drama, starring Brad Pitt as the father, Jessica Chastain as the agreeable matriarch, and Sean Penn as the grown son who has found it difficult to live up to his father’s expectations, and at times finds himself grappling with his father’s harsh words and disciplinarian-focused parenting style.
The story is told in various flashback sequences with keen attention to even the most minute detail. We are supposed to in effect feel through the visuals what it was like living with this family in a Texas town before such things as the internet or even color television were thoughts “regular people” had any inkling toward. What you are supposed to take away is that there was a structure to living and an almost inherent, natural rhythm to the way things were done.
Where the movie starts to take an unexpected, and possibly risky turn is the juxtaposition of the family’s evolution with almost planetarium style, CGI exposition of the formation of the universe. Yes. Malick teams the formation of the American Family with nebula and galaxies.
Let’s hope it’s not some sort of display that punctuates certain scenes, as in, an argument between father and son results in two planets colliding or some rudimentary showmanship such as this. Since it’s been stated that there’s not an exceeding amount of dialogue in this particular art-house film, one would hope that in telling stories of this type the filmmaker would avoid anything that would conjure a ninth grade lesson in Astronomy. But I don’t know, according to reports, those jeers weren’t just because Brad Pitt left the screen for five minutes.
The movie has been highly anticipated at Cannes for two years, and on the day of its premiere audience members waited with barely contained excitement, understandably so. The trailer, full of lush scenes and watery images, made it look like the latest ad for apple pie and mom’s meatloaf. Not just a movie trailer, but selling Americana in itself.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLPe0fHuZsc
Shockingly, despite the anticipation and Brad Pitt’s glowing comments about the film, there were boos from the Cannes audience as the film drew to its end.
Pitt, nonetheless has faith in Malick’s vision.
He tells this micro story of this family in a small town in Texas and juxtaposes it with the macro of the birth of the cosmos and cells splitting,” he said. “I find that so extraordinary. There are parallel truths in that.
Now, I disagree with booing. I think there are more effective ways to indicate your displeasure with a movie’s premise. Hey, you can always write a scathing review that indicates where the plot holes are and where the writer or director went astray. From what I understand, there may have just been too much symbolism in a movie that is a pretty simple family drama. No one wants to feel that a movie is trying desperately to conjure more emotion than is really warranted. If there’s one thing you can say about moviegoers it’s that they can tell when you’re milking sentiment. But how much does the views of Cannes really impact a movie once released nationwide? Let’s keep in mind there were also cheers that pushed back against the boos. And some of that may speak to Malick’s ability to, in Entertainment Weekly‘s Lisa Schwarzbaum’s opinion, “convey the texture of exquisitely remembered childhood in countless details as precise and passing as the weight of a parent’s hand on a kid’s shoulder.”
This sounds like the kind of stuff we’d expect from a film of this magnitude, and possibly just what Malick wants us to take away.
Schwarzbaum adds that the Tree of Life is:
A (typically) fascinating but confounding jumble of two works in one. Under the circumstances, I’ll call them the microcosmic and the macrocosmic. Or maybe the luminously precise and the woo-woo spiritual-lite.
One thing is clear, while Cannes may not significantly effect the outcome of the Tree of Life‘s opening weekend, after all, Brad Pitt and Sean Penn are two prolific actors who can definitely open movies, there will certainly be room for debate. And it already seems like audiences could be split down the middle in thinking the film is either brilliant or banal. It’ll be fun to see how it all shakes out, but mostly, to judge for ourselves.
The Tree of Life opens in wide release on May 27.
