As our cinematic director-elders move closer to the end of their lives, the big questions are starting to surface in their work. Clint Eastwood’s 2010 “Hereafter” explored the afterlife. Then came Terrence Malick in 2011 with “The Tree of Life.”
Co-produced by Brad Pitt, “The Tree of Life” was the toast of the film world at the time, having won the prestigious Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in France.
This is not your average moviegoing experience, not really entertainment per se. It’s a grand mirror of nature and the cosmos, over the surface of which skates a tiny human story.
The film draws on many sources, resulting in a sort of mash-up of a family narrative, Discovery Channel’s “Planet Earth” and “Animal Planet,” Science Channel’s “The Cosmos,” and even a tiny bit of “Jurassic Park.”
“The Tree of Life” is a symphony, a cinematic opus, a poem of images. It requires a contemplative state of mind. Moviegoers who know how to meditate might think about emptying their minds and slowing their breathing. If you need pure popcorn, watch “Thor,” which also came out in 2011—this here is popcorn and inspiration.
Speaking of which, “Thor” shares something with “The Tree of Life.” Actually, two things: Yggdrasil, the gargantuan tree of life in Norse mythology, is somewhat explained in “Thor” and is quite possibly the source of Malick’s title, although numerous religions speak of a tree of life.
The two movies also share spectacular shots of the cosmos—great rotating spiral galaxies, white dwarf stars, red giants, neutron stars, wormholes, black holes, and that stunning, widely seen “Eye of God” nebula.
As for the human story, we see Sean Penn’s architect in his skyscraper office, thinking about a death in the family, flashing back to a Midwestern upbringing in the 1950s. His character, Jack, is a seeker, questioning the meaning of life. Two themes run through the movie, namely, the power of nature and the power of grace.
We are invited to entertain the idea that perhaps these two forces shape everything. In the microcosm of the family, Brad Pitt embodies the force of nature in the character of an authoritarian, bullying father. A newcomer at the time, Jessica Chastain—looking like a luminous, willowy mixture of Cate Blanchett and Bryce Dallas Howard—embodies grace.
Oceans, sand dunes, poetry, light patterns, human birth, birth of stars, whispered philosophies, choirs, volcanoes, clouds, waterfalls, red rocks, hot springs, jellyfish, dinosaurs, manta rays, sequoias …
Pondering Life’s Big Questions
This ultrawide spectrum immediately and inherently generates some of the huge questions that humans tend to ask. Simultaneously, by using what seems like the widest span of macrocosmic and microcosmic images photographed to date, it allows intuitions of answers to well up in our minds by simply expanding our visual perspective.
By juxtaposing the tiny, “mundane” human with the towering, colossal setting in which we exist, it’s almost impossible not to imagine that there must be rhyme and reason behind the sheer magnitude of this imagery.
There should be more movies like this. It seems to me that if we don’t start filling our minds with these kinds of questions, slowing our breathing down, and taking a break from Everything, we will love less and less, and our lives will indeed flash by.
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