The Enchanting Tree of Life

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I saw Terrence Malick’s Tree of Life this weekend at the Coolidge Corner Theatre. Since its release, this film has gained both its admirers and its critics.  At Cannes, it both won the prestigious Palme d’Or and was booed by some audience members.  I’ll state right off the bat, this is not a movie for everyone. It is a non-linear, messy, quiet, and slow film. Do not expect a classic Hollywood plot where everything is tightly scripted and easily resolved.  Malick’s film is less of a story, and more of an experience.  It can be difficult. But it can also reenchant you with the world.

The film is composed of multiple stories, bound together by the subject of life.  To tell these stories, Malick’s camera brings you into different stages and forms of life. One part of the film looks at the lives of a Texas family in the 1950s. You watch as the three boys in the family grow up, living under both the care and abuse of their father, played by Brad Pitt, and the adoration of their mother, Jessica Chastain.  You follow them through summertime adventures through the woods, through fights with parents, through the tender moments of familial love.

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This family’s story is paired with an epic journey through the universe.  Malick gives us a glimpse of the enormous and the microscopic.  Malick’s directorial eye is lyrical as he leads the audience through constellations, nebulous clouds, dividing cells, and growing underwater organisms. He shows us the core of the earth and the edges of the sky.  In this tour of the universe, Malick places the human experience in perspective. Our lives become infinitesimal in comparison of the scope of this grander order. As Malick places the O’Brien family’s loss and grief within this universe, you begin to appreciate the wonder of human existence, especially because of its marginal place in the larger scheme of things.  Malick’s film mediates on the order of life, and it asks you to consider these mysteries yourself since Malick will give audiences no easy answer to his film’s logic or message.

There are moments when this grand tour invokes a state of awe.  It is an affective experience, as you feel your way through the memories of a childhood and the life of a world. 136 minutes long, after a while your eyes do begin to tire after such visual concentration. Like his previous work, Tree of Life is a richly visual film, and is best seen on the big screen.  After leaving the theatre, the film stays with you, making you see the world anew, each color more saturated, each sensation fresh. You are left with a new sense about your life, and I think this is Malick’s ultimate aim.