The Tree of Life and Eschatology

Brother... Mother. It was they who brought me to your door.

On first viewing these opening words to The Tree of Life seem enigmatic, but on a second viewing they take on a more literal meaning.

After having seen the film, we know that Jack has an intense love for both his brother and mother, whom we see in his memories. His mother is portrayed as a graceful, angelic, flawless being of light. Since no human purely embodies goodness in this way, it's safe to assume that the lens through which the mother is portrayed in the film is Jack's own memories. Many of which were based on real experiences, but many of which he probably has imagined or constructed. Such as when we see his parents grieving his brother's death, and there's a shot of Jack as a grown man in the room with them, but they can't see him. Indicating that this is Jack's own interpretation of how his parents received the news of his brother's death.  Or when we see his mother dancing on air. The mother in the film is most likely an idealized version of his mother -- as his memory has somewhat distorted or caricatured her -- whose graciousness and love led Jack to see goodness in the world and seek to understand it.

The same is true of his brother, but in a different way. He also sees his brother as fundamentally good, while he views himself as fundamentally wicked (at least after a certain age when he "discovers" sin). The death of Jack's brother profoundly affects him, even into his late adult life, as you would imagine. It is reflection upon this tragedy that prompts Jack to seek answers to questions about life by probing his own memories about his brother.

But whose door do Jack's mother and brother bring him to?

Within the context of the film it's clear that the door is God's door. The door of Faith, which is portrayed near the end of the film as a literal door frame in the middle of a desert landscape. Having searched his own life, through his memories, for answers about God, life, humanity and existence, and having primarily found those answers through his mother and his brother, Jack is brought to the door of Faith and he steps through.


As soon as Jack steps through the door there is a sequence of shots that are reminiscent of those from the Creation sequence earlier in the film when, in response to questions of "Who are we to you?", God responds -- as he does in the Book of Job -- with a display of natural wonders starting with the Creation of the universe. At this moment, when he comes to Faith by trusting in God and, according to the Christian belief, is made a new man through Christ, we are shown a glimpse of New Creation. The ultimate, eschatological reality of those who will be resurrected to live in the New Creation.

 Malick's choices of shot sequence are not arbitrary. These shots of New Creation are triggered the moment Jack enters the door of Faith. In most of these shots Earth itself is shown, and these shots can be taken to represent an external, God's-eye view of New Creation occurring -- Heaven and Earth coming together -- which we then "zoom in" to on the shores of a beach of New Earth, where the Humans are entering New Creation together, after having been resurrected. The title of the film is significant here as in Revelation 22:2 where the tree of life is used as a symbol for mankind's renewal during the time when Eden is being restored. Add to this the otherworldly look of the landscapes that are shown -- though still clearly being Earthly -- along with the resurrection images, and how all of this relates to the Christian doctrines of the Resurrection and New Creation, and how they in turn relate to Jack's journey in the film leads me to the conclusion that the final sequence is a profound depiction of Christian eschatology.

It would seem that this final sequence is a subjective vision as experienced by Jack, but one which acts as a preview for Jack, showing an understanding of the ultimate hope for humanity from his perspective. Whether it's a literal vision given to Jack supernaturally, or whether it is Jack's personal understanding of a divine truth is debatable, but the essence of what is being shown seems indisputable.

As the film can largely be seen as an ongoing dialogue with God, taking place in the head of Jack, with God providing answers to Jack's questions, this final sequence is a culmination of the answers to all the questions: "Who are we to you?", "Where were you?", "Why do we suffer?", "Is there nothing deathless in this world?", "How do I get back where they are [to a place of innocence]?" God provided individual answers along the way, but the ultimate answer to all of them is that God's love and grace opens up a means for Salvation from our fallen state where pain, sin, and death are defeated and erased, and we are given New Life in Christ.

With the grip that dispensationalism has on the contemporary, American religious imagination, it's highly likely that even many Christians wouldn't recognize this eschatological vision as being fundamentally Christian at all. Which is a shame because -- if not for other more important reasons -- it would allow for a deeper appreciation of this film and what it has to say.

David Bentley Hart on 'The Tree of Life'

The anxious anticipation is over. David Bentley Hart has weighed in on The Tree of Life in a piece titled Seven Characters In Search of a Nihil Obstat over at First Things.

The muses are gaily capricious in the favors they bestow upon us, but humorlessly imperious in the demands they make of us. One never knows when inspiration may strike; one knows only that, when it comes, it must not be resisted. In my case, the occasion was an idle afternoon this past week, as I was irascibly considering the reaction of a few conservative Catholic critics to Terrence Malick’s strange, beautiful, perhaps slightly mad, and deeply Christian film The Tree of Life. One review even described the sensibility of the film as “New Age,” a judgment bizarrely inapposite to Malick’s often dark, often radiant, emotionally austere, and deeply contemplative art.

The film, in fact, is brilliant, mesmerizingly lovely, and almost alarmingly biblical. Even if one is not enchanted (as I most definitely am) by Malick’s signature cinematic mannerisms, or by the fleeting hints of his more recondite intellectual preoccupations (Heidegger? Gnosticism? Buddhism? Russian Sophiology, perhaps?), surely one ought to recognize the ingenious subtlety of the scriptural allegories around which the film is built, and of the film’s meditations on the mystery of God’s silence and eloquence, and on innocence and transgression, and on the divine glory that shines out from all things.

Or so I was thinking as I drowsed there, warming my pelt in a pool of sunlight. Then, however, it occurred to me that perhaps, after all, these critics did have a kind of point. Oh, yes, The Tree of Life is profoundly, if mysteriously, scriptural—with its images of Eden, Cain and Abel, God speaking out of the whirlwind, divine Wisdom dancing at the heart of creation, Christ the man of sorrows, and so on—but is that sufficient to make it a truly Catholic film, at least of the sort these earnest critics so obviously crave? And I realized that probably it is not: It contains no pericopes from the catechism, no triumphant affirmations of papal primacy, no satisfying deathbed conversions, no heartwarming tableaux of the happy Catholic family warm in the embrace of Mother Church, no nuns, no Bing Crosby, no Italians . . .

It's not an exhaustively thorough review of the film, but it is great to hear his thoughts. He spends the bulk of the piece satirically renouncing the suggestion by some Catholics that the film is "New Age" or "not Christian enough". As I had written before, I also found such suggestions absurd, but Hart finds a particularly brilliant method of ridiculing these suggestions by offering a rough draft script for the perfect Catholic film.

'Tree of Life' Befuddles Some

As the film opens in wider and wider release, and reaches audiences in more remote parts of the country, it has apparently provoked some bizarre reactions. It recently debuted at Avon Theater in Stamford Connecticut and received what must have been some substantial number of patrons who sought a refund because the film was 'boring', 'unfocused' and 'time-dragging'. This wouldn't be so surprising if it occurred at a large multiplex, but at a small, indie-oriented, arthouse theater -- whose patrons should be used to unconventional, challenging films -- it is strange.

The theater denied requests for refunds, standing by the quality of the film, and posted this letter outside the cinema in response:

I would deride the intelligence of this particular town, but the movie isn't a puzzle film. It's a film that is primarily to be experienced and enjoyed, rather than 'figured out'. It doesn't take a great intellect to engage the film seriously or to be moved by it. But if your palette for film is trained on simplistic, crowd-pleasing, commercial cinema -- as I suspect must be the case for those seeking refunds -- then the response isn't surprising. Which is not to say that any and all sophisticated film aficionados will certainly, inexorably enjoy the film, but it is fairly safe to say that none of them would seek a refund since they would be able to appreciate the ambition and the craft of the film, even if it didn't necessarily work for them.

The other possibility is that the viewers are fairly sophisticated, arthouse patrons, but they took offense at the religious content. Though, given the nature of the responses as described, I don't think this is the case. It's much more likely that they were unsophisticated viewers who were attracted by the big names.

The film doesn't open everywhere until July 8th and once it does I suspect that some large percentage of mainstream audiences will respond similarly, since their appreciation apparatus for high-art in general is so poorly calibrated and their tastes are so coarse and vulgar. We shall see.

Malick Prepping 6 Hour Cut of 'The Tree of Life'

Over the weekend Emanuel Lubezki -- the cinematographer who worked with Terrence Malick on The Tree of Life -- said in an interview when discussing Malick's editing that Malick is preparing a 6 hour cut of The Tree of Life. This is astonishing for multiple reasons.

First is that a 6 hour long movie of any kind is an absurd oddity. Second is that a 6 hour cut of this particular film -- which may be the best of the millennium -- is an absurd oddity that will have film lovers salivating in anticipation. The third reason is that this is the busiest Malick has ever been in his career. He has just completed The Tree of Life, he's already competed shooting on a new film, and he's apparently in the ongoing process of working on Voyage of Time, a feature length documentary that is an extrapolation of the sequence from The Tree of Life that depicts the creation and evolution of the universe. Add to this that he's apparently simultaneously editing a 6-hour cut of The Tree of Life and that's a lot of activity for a man who is known for extended periods of inactivity. Though the 6-hour cut might not be as labor intensive because he's  winnowing it down from an initial 8-hour cut of the movie that already exists.

Apparently the long cut will feature a lot more of the material from the young boys lives, which makes sense. It will be very interesting to see how this turns out. It's difficult to imagine improving upon the current 2.5 hour cut of the film, which seems perfectly paced and proportioned. I wonder if it will be released on director's cut DVD (hopefully Criterion) or if it will get a limited cinematic re-release? Or whether it will ever see any kind of release at all? In any case, I absolutely can't wait to see it.

Christopher Nolan and David Fincher Talk Malick and 'The Tree of Life'

If you are unfortunate enough to be among those unfamiliar with the works of Terrence Malick, perhaps high praise from Christopher Nolan (Memento, Inception, The Dark Knight) and David Fincher (Se7en, Fight Club, Zodiac, The Social Network) will awaken you to the cinematic treasure trove that is Malick's work.

This promotional featurette for The Tree of Life shows the two director's discussing Malick's work and technique over clips from the film. Nolan's analysis is especially interesting. It's a shame this thing is so short and that the directors don't really discuss The Tree of Life specifically, just Malick generally, though. Hopefully there is more footage of these interviews that will be released in some form (i.e. DVD extras) later.

Films to Anticipate - For 2011 and Beyond

My tastes in film tend to be fairly narrow -- as you'll see, I mostly like directors with arthouse roots, who carry those sensibilities into their more mainstream, bigger budget, studio careers -- but some parties have expressed interest in my opinion on what films they should be keeping an eye out for so hopefully this will be a helpful resource. If you feel I've omitted anything worth anticipating, please comment and let me know. It's possible something slipped my mind, or there's a project I was otherwise unaware of.

Django Unchained - written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. It just broke that the film will be released on Christmas day, 2012. Coming off of the excellent Inglorious Basterds, Tarantino continues to explore the theme of historical vengeance, aimed at the purest evils. In Basterds, it was the Nazis, in Django it will be slave owners in America. The film is a spaghetti western about an escaped slave (as yet uncast) who teams up with a German bounty hunter (Christoph Waltz), to get revenge on a merciless slave owner to be played by Leonardo DiCaprio, who has taken his wife hostage. It's kind of philosophically interesting what Tarantino seems to be doing, in a meta-film sense. Some viewers -- rightly -- have qualms about indulging in revenge fantasies, but Tarantino seems to be challenging those viewers to try not to indulge and delight in his tales of vengeance against the purest of evils, those that are the most prominent in the consciousness of the West. It's admittedly difficult to resist the appeal.

Untitled - In an unprecedented turnaround time, Terrence Malick has quickly followed up completion of his magnificent, stunning The Tree of Life, with a new film. Malick is notorious for having large gaps of time between films, so it's peculiar that he would film, and can, a new movie this quickly. And with The Tree of Life representing a kind of culmination of his film career thematically, it will be very interesting to see what direction this film goes. The new film is still untitled, but is sometimes referred to as 'The Burial'. It is some form of love story with Ben Affleck and Rachel McAdams playing the two main characters (and Javier Bardem playing a priest). Though it's finished shooting, there's no telling how long it will take to edit, market and release, but whenever it does hit, definitely be on the lookout.

The Master - though the title is subject to change, this is Paul Thomas Anderson's new one with Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Joaquin Phoenix. The film is said to be loosely modeled on the life of L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology. I believe it's about to start filming soon. Coming off of There Will be Blood, I was very curious to see what PTA would tackle next, and this seems interesting and ambitious material. Anderson is absolutely among the most interesting and talented directors working, so I can't wait for this.

The Dark Knight Rises - by Christopher Nolan with Tom Hardy as Bane and Anne Hathaway as Catwoman, with most of the rest of the cast returning. The consensus is that The Dark Knight is the best superhero comic book film ever made, and I'm somewhat inclined to agree, even though I do think it had more flaws than most seem to think. In any case, Christopher Nolan films are reliably smart and entertaining, so if there's any blockbuster-type film to eagerly await, it's this one. I think it's coming out summer 2012.

Noah - This is still in early stages, but things are happening with it. After dropping out of directing The Wolverine, it seems that this Biblical epic will be Darren Aronofsky's (Pi, Requiem for a Dream) next endeavor. Aronofsky and his collaborators made the script into a graphic novel to help pitch the film, which apparently worked as it currently has been 50% financed by some studio, and will have the rest covered if they officially land Christian Bale to star (he's currently in talks to do so). It's safe to say that it won't be your typical Charlton Heston-esque Old Testament epic with Aronofsky directing. Aronofsky has said he wants to explore this story and the character of Noah, who he says has more darkness and nuance to him than you typically tend to think. I believe I read that he might portray Noah, initially, as a drunk, or something to that effect. But don't quote me on that.

The Hobbit - With Peter Jackson retaking the helm, after Guillermo Del Toro left the films, fans of The Lord of the Rings films, as well as the books, can feel fairly confident that all is well. Not that I was too worried when Del Toro was directing, but there was a question to what extent he would submit himself to Jackson's vision of the universe, and to what extent he would inject his own vision. His design of Smaug that he described in a New Yorker profile of him, for example, seemed to be particularly Del Toro-ish -- which means Smaug would not be particularly consistent with Jackson's universe. In any event, with Jackson helming there are no longer such lingering questions, and greatness is to be expected. As I understand it, this will actually be two films, covering the material from The Hobbit, and adding story to kind of connect The Hobbit to the beginning of Lord of the Rings.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo - Based on Stieg Larsson's immensely popular millennium trilogy, this sees David Fincher (Se7en, Fight Club, Zodiac, The Social Network) returning to his dark, pulp roots as a director. Seems to be a brilliant match of director and material. The trailer looks great and Fincher's work is consistently excellent. It hits theaters Christmas, 2011.

A Dangerous Method - directed by David Cronenberg, and featuring Viggo Mortesen and Michael Fassbender as Freud and Jung, respectively. Mortensen is great, but I would have loved to see Christoph Waltz (who dropped out at the last minute) as Freud alongside Fassbender. This should be excellent.

Gravity - by Alfonso Cuaron starring George Clooney and Sandra Bullock. The film has gone through some production woes, with Robert Downey Jr. being slated to star, and eventually dropping out, and I'm not quite sure what stage it is at currently, but if and when it gets completed it should be very cool. Cuaron directed one of the best Earth-bound, sci-fi dystopian films ever with Children of Men, so it should be cool to see him bring his sensibilities to space sci-fi. The film is said to be 60% CGI, integrating live-action with CGI. That is somewhat disheartening, but I imagine that the bulk of CGI will be of inanimate objects, like space crafts and such, and so won't be so bad. Apparently most of -- if not the whole -- film will be shot in zero-gravity conditions, and it will feature a 20-minute, uncut opening shot. Cool.

Blood Meridian - based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy (No Country for Old Men, The Road) the film was once slated to have Ridley Scott direct, then Todd Field, and more recently the project has fallen into the hands of James Franco, which seems insane. Franco is unproven as a director, and this is a literary classic of the 20th century that will be difficult to bring to the screen. In any case, the source material is utterly brilliant, and much of it has great cinematic potential, especially the enigmatic character of The Judge. If done right it could be phenomenal, but there are a lot of 'ifs' associated with this film at this stage. Who knows when it will go into production, or even whether it will ultimately get made, but if and when it hits theaters, check it out. But read the novel first.

Those are my most highly anticipated, taking a long-term look at the future, as many of the projects have not even begun filming yet. In the more near-term (2011 releases mostly), and with somewhat less interest I'm also anticipating:

• David Cronenberg's Cosmopolis
• Haywire by Steven Soderbergh
• On the Road - an adaptation of the Jack Kerouac novel with a good cast, from the team that made The Motorcycle Diaries
• Moneyball with Brad Pitt, Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Jonah Hill, about Oakland A's manager Billy Beane.
• The Rum Diary starring Johnny Depp based on the novel by Hunter S. Thompson. The film is completed, but since the studio isn't hurrying to release it, it might not be any good.
• The Man of Steel is Zach Snyder's take on Superman
• Moonrise Kingdom is Wes Anderson's newest with Ed Norton and Bill Murray.

The Tree of Life's Christian Pedigree

In my initial review and follow-up post on The Tree of Life it was made clear, I would hope, that the film had a fairly strong Christian (or at least Judeo-Christian) pedigree. Most non-religious reviewers seem to see the film as essentially spiritual, and perhaps vaguely Christian, but as being about 'more' than just God or religion. This is certainly an understandable reading of the film given the worldview that they're working within.

I was more curious to hear the opinion of fellow Christian reviewers and whether or not they would see the film as intensely Christian, or whether they would view it more as primarily depicting a kind of new-agey spirituality.

As a big fan of David Bentley Hart, I inquired whether he would be reviewing the film, since he had professed great admiration of Terrence Malick's work, and since this is Malick's most overtly Christian film, in my view. Unfortunately, he hasn't had a chance to see the film yet and said that he would only know whether he had an inclination to review it after he has seen it.

This video review by Father Robert Barron on Youtube largely echoes my interpretation of the film, as well as gives some additional perspective on the film.

Today, over at First Things, Kevin Collins wrote one of the first Christian reviews of the film that I've read and he definitely tends more toward the interpretation of the film depicting interactions with an indifferent, mute, new-age, deist God -- but not the Christian God or the God of the Old Testament. He points primarily to the fact that Christ's name is never invoked in the film, that the God in the film is ill-defined, and that the Faith of the family isn't of a robust nature, occupying the center of their lives. What this reviewer seems to miss, I think, is that the film is mostly about coming to faith, not already dwelling strongly within it. The journey is that of Jack's, and it's about him finding his faith, amidst responses from God that are of the same character as God's response in the Book of Job.

To some extent, Collins accurately points out what the film is not, but I think he misses what the film is. Certainly it is not a theological treatise; it is not a depiction of the most venerable form of Christian Faith; it is not about all the details of the history of God's relationship with man. It is a film about the God of Creation; it is about Man occupying a central place in God's creation; it is about the Fall, death, human frailty and sin; it is about a God who loves his creatures; it is even about salvation, Resurrection and New Creation. Admittedly, much of this is arrived at in a somewhat elliptical fashion, but there seems to be no question that this is the thrust of much of the film.

A Christian viewer might have liked the means of reconciliation and salvation to be depicted in more concrete terms, but one must be aware too that putting in material extremely Christ-centric, with strongly Christian language would absolutely drive studios, stars, financial backers, distributors, and viewers away from the film -- unfortunately -- very probably relegating the film to straight-to-video status, at best. Not that this was Malick's reason for not doing this -- I think he likely was able to make the film he intended to make -- but the desire to see such a thing in a mainstream studio film is a literal impossibility.

Celebrate The Tree of Life for being the film that it is, and try not to to let the thoughts of what it is not detract from that appreciation.

'The Tree of Life', Surfaces, Truth, Job and God

The Tree of Life is largely -- if not wholly -- a film about surfaces, details and particularities, which points to no deeper or hidden 'truth' than that of its surface. In this sense, Malick's method is not only foreign to most modern filmmakers but antithetical to modernity itself. The ethos of modernity is largely reductionist. It attempts to abstract 'essences' out of surfaces and particularities; to 'solve' ambiguities, paradoxes and contradictions and distill the diverse specifics of the particular into self-evident truths. This is a futile exercise as the truth of Being is most fully contained in the surface, in the interrelatedness of all its aspects, in the form of the particular. Malick, it seems, understands this. Life -- Creation -- is a gift, with all of its contours, and you need to embrace the gift for what it is, in all of its particularity and specificity.

If you understand this, then Malick's extreme attention to detail in this film makes sense. With his subject being no less than Creation itself (with Man occupying a special place therein), the details need to be universal in nature. Malick achieves this universality-of-the-particular spectacularly. If there is any abstraction to be done by the audience, it is in abstracting from the details of this family's life to the lives of all humans, including that of the viewer. But because the particulars and details are so vivid, evocative and universal, Malick makes this an easy task for the audience. And in eschewing the inherent finitude of a typical three-act drama, Malick frees the particulars of the film from confinement to this narrative, allowing them to become the particulars that represent all particulars.

Since I've stated in my initial review that the film is propelled by a dialogue with God, some might ask "aren't you abstracting some deeper meaning or truth not present in the simple details of the surface of the film?" Not really. The dialogue with God is almost as explicit as any element of the film. Some of the questions that are posited as voiceovers are often addressed to 'you' rather than any specific person. This fact combined with the the fact that some of the voiceover questions and statements are seemingly addressed at other people -- such as 'mother', 'father' or 'son' -- might obscure the fact that the vast majority of the voiceovers only make sense as addresses to a personal God --or as contemplation before Him -- rather than toward human individuals or anthropomorphized entities, such as 'the universe', 'nature', 'fate', etc.

Just as important as the searching questions of the humans in the film (primarily Jack), is the fact that God is actually answering the questions posed. The answers from God, of course, come in the form of the events that occur in the film, the responses from the characters, the significance within the whole of the narrative, character's realizations and so forth. And all of God's responses in the film are somewhat colored by God's response to another group of interlocutors, Job and Elihu. A couple of verses from Job 38 open the film. In the verses God is speaking -- addressing Job whose friend Elihu had been speaking with him about God's wisdom -- and saying "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the Earth?" The statement by God is not solely meant as a display of His own authority or of Job's insignificance to him (as many reviewers unfamiliar with Job, and reading the quote out of context, seem to take it to mean); on the contrary, Job was God's beloved follower.

The purpose of God's response to Job and indirectly to Job's friends, including Elihu -- who was ostensibly claiming that God, in his wisdom, allows people suffer to set them on the right path, and that suffering was evidence of unrepentant sin -- was to point out how little Elihu actually understands (due to his unfortunate condition of being finite and human), not only as a display of God's own might, knowledge and authority, but to point out that Elihu's (and Job's other friends) attempting to distill God's infinite wisdom to nice charts of debt and credit, punishment and reward, is futile and misguided. Which is not to necessarily contradict the councils of Elihu, or to show him to be speaking falsehoods, but to show that those councils are incomplete and that God's wisdom is ultimately inscrutable by finite beings.

The questioning done by Job, as well as the 'wisdom' of his friends, is echoed in the voiceovers of the characters in this film, also wondering why it is they suffer as they do.  To which God's reply always carries the same connotation and intonation of his reply to Elihu and Job: I'm in control; stop trying to reduce my ways to an economy that you can grasp; you're in no position to understand precisely how it is I toll out justice; accept the gift of life as it is, and rejoice in all of its particularity; love each other and show one another grace just as I have shown infinite love and grace in calling you forth from nothing to participate in Creation.

If you take the cues from the Bible quote and the rest of the narrative, all of this is present in the most surface, superficial reading of the film (superficial being a positive thing in this context, given what Malick is going for), so I'm delving no deeper than the surface. I'd argue that others are too quickly looking past the surface, if anything.

Of course, in another sense, what I've described here is necessarily an act of interpretation and distillation. My words certainly are not printed on the celluloid of the film itself. And The Tree of Life has much more to say than only that which I've vaguely approximated here (and it says it better and with much greater beauty). I would only urge you to appreciate, not necessarily the inexhaustible depth of the film, but rather its (seemingly) inexhaustible surface, which is in turn an approximation of God's inexhaustible gift, in all its glorious particularity.

Tree of Life - Review

[One or two small spoilers are contained herein]

The Tree of Life by Terrence Malick is such a titanic cinematic achievement that it's difficult to write about. Part of me wants to write nothing, or maybe a one sentence review (since no words will do it justice). Another parts of me wants to write a massive essay. I'm going to see if I can say everything I want to say (but not more than needs to be said) in a normal length review.

I suppose the best way to rein in my initial review of the film is by narrowing my focus to those things that surprised me about the film. I was expecting a gorgeous visual feast, I was expecting a soul-stirring experience, I was expecting to be shown the creation of the cosmos, I was expecting a highly personal film focusing on childhood family life in 1950s Texas which draws heavily on Malick's personal experience, I was expecting Heidegerrian philosophizing, and I was expecting Malick to skillfully draw those strands together to form a magesterial tapestry. I got all of that in spades. There were a few things I wasn't expecting, though. 

The first thing that struck me about the film is its bold narrative choice that occurs within the first 5 minutes. Very early on, before there has been any character development, the main family in the story experiences a tragic loss. One of their sons has died suddently at the age of 19, leaving the family grief-stricken and questioning the meaning of life. This was a daring move as it risks alienating casual viewers of the film right off the bat. Earnestly showing a grieving family, mourning the loss of a character we essentially don't yet know anything about, breaks the traditional rules of emotional engagement with the audience. How we are supposed to feel something for someone we don't know? Malick is willing to trust that the audience will be able to map their own experiences with loss and grief into the fabric of what they're viewing. Few directors would have the audacity or courage to do that, as it is a lot to ask of an audience. It's also a lot to ask of his actors, and they do him well. Jessica Chastain's performance is devastating and Brad Pitt is highly affecting  in these early moments as they struggle with the loss of a child. With the way that the film plays out, it seems it would almost have to be done this way, but it's an interesting, unique approach that ends up working marvelously. 

The second thing that was somewhat surprising to me was the largely linear nature of the narrative. Being a fan of Terrence Malick, I was prepared for some unconventional storytelling; he never really has played by the rules. Reading many reviews, though, I was expecting something even more experimental than his usual fare. Strangely, I felt the film played out in an intelligible, sequential order and it was not quite as elliptical or obtuse as I had been lead to believe that it was. Many reviewers seemed to understand the film primarily as an impressionistic flood of images, sounds and existential questions on family, nature and spirituality, and only that. If the film is understood as a dialogue between the main character -- the oldest child in the family, played as an adult by Sean Penn -- and God, the narrative becomes quite coherent and linear. Penn's character asks questions and God answers them. Within those questions and answers are explorations of nature and Grace, love and loss, memory and experience, childhood and maturity, faith and family, but all of it is enfolded into a call-and-response interaction between God and humanity. 

Another surprise is that the character development -- mostly that of Pitt and Penn's characters -- is substantial and deeply affecting, though it is a particularly Malickian treatment of character. Even as the characters sometimes double as ciphers for some larger concern, they remain recognizable human beings, as real and alive as any that I've seen on the screen in quite some time. 

The last thing that surprised me about the film is the explicitly Christian themes, imagery, language and metaphysics that run throughout, which I've already hinted at. These aren't subtle undertones, mind you, but extremely overt and inherent in the fabric of the story, which was a delightful surprise. The film opens with a verse from Job: "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the Earth?", and it lays the foundation (so to speak) for much that we will end up seeing in more ways than one. As I've already stated the narrative is moved along by voiceovers of various characters asking questions of God. Some of the questions are 'unanswered', others end up very much answered. But the dialogue with God plays a very central role in driving all of the action.

In response to one such question from a character, the creation of the universe ex nihilo is shown. Later The Fall of man is depicted analogically in a sequence where the main character finds himself rebelling and sinning, and not understanding what has taken hold of him. Resurrection is also hinted at in a couple sequences. In one scene a pastor is giving a sermon on Job, and as the eldest son listens he wonders "is nothing in this world deathless?", as the camera pans up to a stain-glass image of Christ. Later in the film there are eschatological depictions of resurrections of the human dead, though if you blink you might miss them. To add another dimension to all this, there are also hymns that comprise some parts of the score, the film closing with a choral chant of "Amen". 

I've somewhat exhausted the topic of things that surprised me about the film, so let me comment on a few other aspects that require it, and then be done. 

Malick's eye for detail is phenomenal. The cinematography is exquisite, every frame seems delicately crafted, and the subjects for his lens are no less extraordinary; from the microcosmic to macrocosmic, and back our familiar world of "medium-sized objects". Even if the film had nothing of interest to say (which is emphatically not the case), the craft of the film is a wonder in itself. Stunning, sensational cinema. If Lubezki doesn't win the Oscar for cinematography than there will have been an injustice done. 

Though, the details Malick has such a knack for isolating aren't only aesthetic. The subtle character moments and interactions contain a greater depth and are more relatable than most standard drama fare. The specifics of Malick's world are often kept from being nailed-down to any immediate context (though within the context of the film they are precisely positioned), and thus are free to become more universal in scope. So despite the obviously highly personal nature of the material -- many of the details of the film mirror details from Malick's own childhood -- it never feels like it's an internalized contemplation, with contours of story only accessible to himself, but rather a gift for all to participate in, open enough to be universal but specific and localized enough to be real. 

I imagine I'll write many more words on this film in the future as my sense is that it is infinitely inexhaustible film, but these are my immediate reactions. The Tree of Life is an ode to all of Creation, the creatures that inhabit it and He that calls us forth from nothing to participate in it. 

Malick's 'Tree of Life' Premieres at Cannes

Terrence Malick's long awaited film The Tree of Life premiered at Cannes this weekend, with Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain accompanying the film, while Malick was conspicuously (though predictably) absent. The film received mix reactions from the audience garnering both applause and boos. Though the early written review consensus on Rottentomatoes is overwhelmingly positive, so far. In any case, the boos aren't worrisome to me, especially coming from the crowd at Cannes. Malick's film, from all appearances, looks to be highly philosophical, contemplative, metaphysical and is -- according to all reports -- not driven by narrative. Even if a film of this nature were to be sublimely brilliant one would still expect a smattering of boos from the crowd at Cannes. Though it's of course possible that the film just doesn't live up to the hype. That remains to be seen.

As a Christian I'm particularly interested to see how Malick depicts the creatio ex nihilo event and the subsequent development of life and the cosmos, as well as how he explores the not-un-Christian themes of Nature and Grace and their interplay. Add this to the fact that the film will quite obviously be a dazzling visual spectacle along with Malick's brilliant track record and this is by far my most anticipated film in quite a long time.

David Bentley Hart Goes In on Ayn Rand

In the new issue of First Things, David Bentley Hart unleashes this excoriating piece on Ayn Rand and her followers, in light of the release of the Atlas Shrugged film. If you read my recent piece on Ayn Rand you won't find anything near as harsh, though Hart doesn't say anything that I disagree with. I would confirm her moral idiocy and that she was philosophically simplistic and naive, and would only apologize on her behalf when it comes to political and economic prescriptions, which Hart doesn't even touch on. And, to an extent, he doesn't need to because Rand held Objectivism to be a complete, closed, all-encompassing worldview that couldn't be partitioned. So if any aspect of it doesn't work, then the whole thing collapses, in a sense. And I would agree that as a systematic philosophy it does fail, I would only add that the political and economic aspects of it are salvageable. Though we could always get those by reading Burke, Hayek, Adam Smith, Milton Friedman etc. instead.

Perhaps just as interesting for me was that Hart included a paragraph of praise for Terrence Malick and the Tree of Life trailer--to contrast with the trailer he watched for Atlas Shrugged--which I share an obsessive love for (I've watched the trailer dozens of times).

Not long after seeing the trailer for Atlas Shrugged, I came across the trailer for quite a different kind of film: Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life. Malick is the world’s greatest living filmmaker, and this project has been with him for years. The two minutes or so of clips that have been released are far more beautiful, moving, and profound than anything associated with the name of Ayn Rand could ever be. “There are two ways through life,” a woman’s voice announces as the trailer opens: “the way of nature and the way of grace. We have to choose which one to follow.” That is arguably the great theme of all of Malick’s finest work; and I suspect that the deeper question the film poses is whether these two ways can become one. If what little I have heard about the film is right, moreover, the answer will have something to do with a love capable of embracing all things, and of both granting and receiving forgiveness. But we shall see.

Even though I don't quite loathe Atlas Shrugged as a novel, as a film it looks to be positively awful. So I would definitely reiterate the filmic prescription at the end of the piece: see Tree of Life and skip Atlas Shrugged.

David B. Hart on Terrence Malick

One of my favorite current writers and thinkers, David Bentley Hart, mentioned one of my favorite living filmmakers, Terrence Malick, in a recent book review, and I was happy to learn that he's also a big fan. As I eagerly anticipate the release of Malick's Tree of Life, set to drop in a month or so, Hart's words have inspired me to revisit Malick's oeuvre. Here's the excerpt:

It may seem like a trivial question, but I cannot help wondering whether the title of this book [All Things Shining] has been lifted from the closing lines of Terrence Malick’s 1998 film adaptation of The Thin Red Line. It would make a kind of sense, given the themes of Malick’s films, and Malick’s Heideggerean background, and the way Heidegger seems to haunt this text like a genial specter. If so, then it seems to me that Hubert Dreyfus and Sean Dorrance Kelly might have done well to learn a few lessons from Malick—and from his mesmerizingly beautiful pagan-Christian-gnostic peregrinations—about the nature of the human longing for the divine, about its terrible ambiguity and urgency, and about its openness to both nature and grace. Because, in the end, All Things Shining is an oddly empty book: It asks so many seemingly deep questions, and then provides such incandescently shallow answers.

- David B. Hart.

Whooshing Through Life, First Things, March 2011.