Cinema Review: The Tree of Life (2011)

Life, the universe and everything. That's the unambitious subject matter of Terrence Malick's fifth feature. Never one to think small, Malick has here made a bewildering yet beautiful dreamlike fusion of music and images. Apparently taking his cue from 2001: A Space Odyssey, the film spans from prehistory to modern times, yet this film is diametrically opposed to Kubrick's rigidly structured approach. The Tree of Life is a free-flowing, meandering, practically formless film, resembling the fractured non-linearity of memory, which is surely intentional. The result is even less mainstream and conventional than the director's previous films, none of which could be described by either of those terms. This is a pure expression of Malickness.

Say goodbye to dialogue, A-to-B storytelling, even an apparent aim. The beginning of the film is particularly mystifying, jumping between three disparate settings and times: leafy 1950s American suburbia, the glass-and-concrete modern city, and the birth of the universe. The beauty on display is inarguable, be it the lush woodland or the rupturing crust of the early Earth, but it lacks any sort of handle to give an audience member something to hang on to. It comes across like an art installation: striking, intriguing, but also a bit distancing, and yes, even pretentious. Malick overdoes some of his stylistic tics, such as the rambling inner monologues, and the gradual "tilt up to treetops" shot (seriously, there's a drinking game in there somewhere). The prehistoric scenes are spectacles to behold, but you're left to ponder the point of, say, the dinosaur flopping on the beach, any explanations unforthcoming from the film itself.

Eventually, some sort of focus does emerge. This is fundamentally the story of the childhood years of three brothers in 1950s America, who live in fear of their domineering father (Brad Pitt, as unlikeable as he's ever likely to be, while still remaining human). That's it as far as plot goes. We follow the characters through the short chapter of their lives, watching them interact, misbehave, and learn life lessons. It's hard not to see it as autobiographical in some way. However, Malick's unwillingness to concede to anything approaching convention at times seems wilfully obtuse; you yearn at times for a simple conversation between characters. Malick's mastery of the camera is still in evidence; his visuals tell a story with more potency than words could.

Of the three time periods, it's the modern day one that never finds an identity. Sean Penn wanders around streets and buildings looking a bit lost before he stumbles on some strange windswept beach. To detail further would spoil the ending of the film, but suffice to say, its religious and spiritual overtones, not to mention overall weirdness, may be too much for even those people who have made it that far.



Summary
Esoteric and maddening, The Tree of Life is certainly unique. To some, it will be like watching paint dry; to others, a thing of transcendent beauty. Its vision - and the suspicion that it will benefit from repeat viewings - earns it three stars, but its ambition is not quite matched by its distancing, mannered execution.