The Tree of Life

Oh hell. How am I supposed to review Terrence Malick's Tree of Life? I don't feel qualified.

Tree of life is writer/director Terrence Malick's fifth film in 40 years. You see, it's a big deal, because Terrence Malick is the Punxatawny Phil of cinema. Every once in a while, he'll come out of his hole, with a mesmerizing new picture, see his shadow, and go back into hiding again, sometimes for as long as two decades. Every new Malick film is a true event. Tree of Life is no different. A couple weeks ago, it grabbed the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, their top honor. They're showing it on most of the screens at our local art house theater.

What is Tree of Life about? Why, it's about Life, the Universe and Everything. The above poster about sums it up. I think it might even leave some stuff out. It is not a narrative story, or even a story in the traditional sense. It's more like Terrence Malick looking back on his life and his youth, and contemplating God and the universe, and then committing it all vividly to film. I'm not sure if I've ever seen anything that feels so much like someone's memory. It free-associates from one scene to the next, glimpsing sometimes only a moment, sometimes an image, sometimes something hazy or surreal.

I don't think it's 100% necessary that you are able to comprehend everything that Malick lays out for you to digest. It's a meal of many courses. What I took from the movie, more than anything else, was a whole ton of self-reflection. Malick captures with complete accuracy so many moments and emotions that only a child could experience and feel. I found myself thinking of childhood experiences that I haven't thought about in ages. Remember when the concept of boundaries was explained to you? Don't play there, that's the neighbor's yard. Don't go past this line. Remember how big your yard seemed to be, or how you would pick up snatches of your parents' world? I think I felt, or remembered feeling, just about every emotion we as humans have been assigned over the course of this film.

As expected with Terrence Malick, the cinematography is jaw-dropping. The man shoots like no other. In addition to the sprawling landscapes and nature you see in his other films, we get a glimpse at what the beginnings of the earth were like, focused through Malick's prism, and we also get our first view of an urban landscape from him. It's all beautiful. We also get some dinosaurs! There are DINOSAURS in a Terrence Malick film!

The Tree of Life may not be a film for everyone, but it is a film that I feel everyone can relate to on some level if they give it a shot. The emotions at its core are universal. It's almost 2 1/2 hours long, though, and there's not much plot for the viewer to hang their hat on, so I could see the more popcorn-driven audiences drifting. My wife heard a guy near her snoring. For me, though, it was a true experience, one best appreciated on the largest screen available.