The Tree of Life

Tree of Life
It may be stating the obvious, but cinema is primarily a visual medium. This is something a lot of novice screenwriters tend to overlook as they fill their scripts with lots of dialogue to explain what is happening on the screen overlooking one of the primary tenets of the craft; show, don't tell. That's not to say that there is anything wrong dialogue-heavy screenplays, if they are done well. Tarantino's films are filled with words, but it is such great dialogue that tells you more about the characters than any amount of exposition could. The whole "Royale-with-cheese/foot-massage" sequence from PULP FICTION is a prime example, where we learn about our two heroes and a lot of other characters in what appears to be idle banter. THE TREE OF LIFE is the complete antithesis of a Tarantino movie, and yet both are superb cinema for very different reasons.

Given the film's title and its director you know it is going to be a movie with a degree of mysticism, along the lines of Darren Aronofsky's much maligned and misunderstood THE FOUNTAIN, and for many members of the cinema-going public it will be confusing and inaccessible (aka boring) in much the same way Kubrick's 2001 was (and still is). In fact, the parallels with Kubrick's sci-fi masterpiece and Malick's Palme D'Or winning epic are not very hard to find, with both directors being almost obsessively private individuals whose output was sporadic and usually on their own terms, and marked by striking visuals and cinematography. 2001 and THE TREE OF LIFE are also, paradoxically, both very hard and very simple to explain. It could be said that they are about "Life, the Universe and everything" and Malick's vision of creation and evolution is almost a religious experience for the senses. In fact, more than anything, the whole film is something that has to be experienced at a sensory rather than intellectual level.

How much UK audiences will be able to relate to the perceive idylls and harsher realities of small-town life in 1950s Texas, is yet to be seen, but the cast portray the family so well there is a naturalness to their actions that makes it almost feel like a home movie but shot on 35mm (and 65mm) film by one of the great contemporary cinematographers, Emmanuel Lubezki, who did the amazing work on CHILDREN OF MEN. Thankfully there is something universal about childhood that overcomes the nostalgia, and reveals the mystery of what children did in a time before video games and computers.

There really isn't much more to say about this film without it sounding like intellectual tosh, which is contrary to what the film is about - a celebration of life that has to be experienced for the pure cinema that it is.

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