I don't have anything particularly deep to write about today, but I thought I'd write briefly about Father's Day and all my activities.
To begin with, I hadn't seen my brother or my Dad in quite a while and it was good to see them again. My dad lent me a bunch of esoteric philosophy books to keep me occupied, one of the books was the "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind" book by Suzuki to help me get into meditating so I'm pretty pumped about that.
It's strange to hang out with my brother and dad together now as opposed to in the recent past because we've all changed a lot and become more worldly. Although we've all been through a lot of hardships lately, our relationships have all kind of clicked into a comfortable understanding now which is interesting to see. We all have pretty different views, but after years of familial turmoil with the divorce and financial struggles, it was a breath of fresh air to feel a kind of settled energy while we were walking around Ann Arbor.
(fair use, I'm not making money off of this)
The most eventful thing of the day was that we saw Tree of Life-- now for those who are familiar with Terrence Malick, they should know I was expecting HUGE things, especially after what I considered to be a pretty mind-blowing trailer. I have to admit that I haven't seen many of Malick's films, but I think The Thin Red Line is probably one of my favorite movies, and a really elegant, philosophical take on modern warfare.
Tree of Life, on the other hand, was a mess regardless of what the critics are saying. The premise of the movie is that there is a family living in 1950s Texas (the movie mistakenly was marketing this as a "midwestern" family which confused me a bit), and the struggles of the oldest son, played later in life by Sean Penn, and his domineering father played by Brad Pitt. In the Thin Red Line, the movie was as much "about" every different soldier in each hierarchical position in the Guadalcanal conflict, as well as being about God and war itself, to some extent. Tree of Life is very much like this, because as much as it is about this small family and the micro-tragedies and triumphs of their daily life, it is also about evolution, divine intervention (and a lack of it), destiny, and connectivity or "global consciousness" in some ways.
TTRL and TOL differ in one key respect-- the first has structure and cohesion, while the second doesn't. More appropriately, maybe TOL does have some kind of structure underlying it's mythic scope, but it is undecipherable upon a first viewing, and can only be sensed obliquely-- I study this stuff and it was hard to see how almost anything was connected.
Now first of all, there are plenty of accolades to give this film-- Brad Pitt does well here as the father, and many of the scenes are masterfully directed. The threats in this movie are mostly implied, and the conflicts are minor, but behind Malick's omniscient lens, every injustice and character flaw is elevated to a level of Greek tragedy. There is also a lot to be said for how well Malick's "God-camera," impressionist style syncs so well with the editing in the film, using jump cuts to break up action in mundane scenes, setting up the mise-en-scene in uncomfortable, startling ways.
Malick has the sense to let his camera follow the emotional trajectory of a scene, allowing major characters to pass idly by while his camera swims deeper into the space of a scene like some kind of ethereal presence. Much of the film evokes a spiritual, omniscient feel, as the audience is asked to witness abstract designs of light without any hope of direct representation or explanation, as well as various snippets of the ancient past and distant present-- dinosaurs prowling around a river, hot lava cooling in the night surf, and microscopic organisms in the water bouncing off each other, sometimes merging sometimes not.
His vision is poetic and ambitious, and the film looks like it could be an angel's daydream. For some people, this might be enough to "float" a movie like this-- for me, and for the average viewer who expects his films to adhere to at least some kind of tangible film structure or grammar, it won't.
To begin with the criticisms, many of the critics praised the originality and boldness of the central idea of the film-- this is the first place where this film is getting undue praise. Malick's messages are interesting and compelling, and deserve to have filmic representation. If it has to be boiled down, the central trajectories of the movie concern themselves with human causality, that is the minor events of daily life that shape us, our emotional cause and effect; cosmic causality, the actual planetary mechanisms that shape our destinies; and divine "justice," or whether or not the universe is infused with a sense of ethics.
If Malick had stuck to just the first one, he would've made a focused, 1.5 hour movie with a novelistic, impressionist film style, and he would've nailed it. The film really clicks into gear about a third of the way through, when we go directly into the lives of the main characters and their little house in Texas. The scenes between father and son, brother and brother, husband and wife here slink subtly by, and slowly reveal themselves with the power of great literature. The movie has a novelistic sweep that reminds viewers more of books like East of Eden or The Corrections than any movie-- and this is a singular accomplishment.
I'll even look the other way for Malick's attempts to infuse the movie with some ethical philosophy-- but again, he lacks the control and drive to "kill his darlings." Every rambling idea and postulate that crossed his mind, every false start (and false ending) has made it into this 2.5 hour behemoth. For instructions on how to do accomplish this, see the Coen's A Serious Man.
Where the movie truly fails is in its attempts to bring cosmic scope into such a tightly-knit family drama-- the movie that accomplished this best (and the movie with which comparisons will be most readily made here) is 2001: A Space Odyssey, love it or hate it. I must say I loved it, but if you hated it, then you will despise this because it asks the same amount of patience without any of the discipline to back its promises.
I should say that I'm not saying that these cosmic themes could NEVER be united with the tightly-knit family themes-- in fact, that's where this film could've blossomed, and is probably it's most valuable kernel of inspiration which Malick somehow let slip through his fingers. For examples of these themes being successfully linked, we have to again turn to literature, maybe to Middlesex where we follow the biological and human causality strands through the novel to a devastating emotional finish. Apart from this example, many philosophical texts have turned to the "we are all one" mantra to great effect-- unfortunately, TOL does this, but only mildly.
Basically, those versed in these ideas and those with a lot of patience will find enough to like in this movie. It's undeniably beautiful, but it's like a diamond with a severe crack that diverts all the light away from the rest of it. I can't knock Malick for his ambitions, but he's proven himself to be a filmmaker of a higher caliber than he presents himself here. I was disappointed.
Anyway. I should get back to work. Hope someone enjoyed reading this. Peace,
Ryan
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