Film Review | The Tree of Life

Most of the films out there are not great, nor terrible. They are simply fine. And they will remain that way for as long as mainstream cinema remains expensive to make.

It’s understandable that studios play it safe, if they run the risk of losing millions. Sadly, this means that what we’re left with is bland, mediocre fare. What’s worse, we’ve grown used to it. It’s fine, we say.

Enter Terence Malick. The reclusive director has made all of five feature films in a career spanning four decades, and since Badlands (his 1973 debut) each of his subsequent features – Days of Heaven (1978), The Thin Red Line (1999), The New World (2006) – have been greeted by nothing less than (yes, sometimes bewildered) awe.

His latest work has all the makings of an autobiographical magnum opus. The Tree of Life, premiering at the Cannes Film Festival this year and scoring its most coveted prize (the Palme d’Or) tells the story of the O’Brien family.

Focusing on the eldest son (of three) Jack, it cuts from the boys’ idyllic 1950s childhood to present day, as Jack (here played by Sean Penn) is still struggling to come to terms with the death of his younger brother, who was felled in battle at the tender age of 19.

Jostled between a stern but loving father (Brad Pitt) and an ethereal, emphatic mother (Jessica Chastain) we witness how Jack grows to experience the world and build a relationship with his family members through long sequences detailing their life in the quiet suburb of Waco, Texas.

Another integral – and controversial – segment details the creation of the universe. Yep, you read that right. The sequence arrives shortly after the death of the child has been announced, and includes details that are both breathtaking and on the slightly dodgy side. We witness galaxies being formed. We see close-ups of emergent jellyfish. We see beached dinosaurs and, in one of the more baffling sequences of all, we witness what appears to be the first instance of free will – as a dinosaur approaches a felled member of its same
species, but then hesitates as to whether it should go ahead and crush its skull.

But while this scene is as confusing – and out-of-theblue crazy – on film as it is on paper, the long drawn out sequences back in the ‘real world’ won me over… partly because they were so long and immersive. A lot like some key works of modernist literature – Joyce and Woolf spring to mind – Malick depicts life as we all perceive it: through a limited lens, and when we’re younger things are all the more intense, and even the mundane becomes memorable.

It’s certainly not for everyone. It’s certainly longer than most features, and definitely not something to watch to wind down. But there’s tons of films that could easily fulfil that brief… and I can pretty much guarantee that for all its faults, The Tree of Life will stick with you for far longer – love it or hate it.

Whether you think it’s a masterpiece or an incoherent, indulgent mess, it’s highly unlikely that you’ll find it to be just okay… just, fine.