I was cautious about raising my hopes too high for Terrence Malick’s latest offering, ‘The Tree of Life’. After all, this is the film that won the prestigious Palme d’Or award for best film, yet also concluded its premiere at the very same festival to a chorus of booing. As worthwhile art should often do, it has divided opinion and inspired plenty of debate.
So what’s the film about? Well, in short, it’s about everything, ever. Malick uses his film to explore nothing less ambitious than the very meaning of life itself. This includes an extended sequence where we are shown the formation of the universe, the gradual development of life on Earth, and even a slightly ill-advised CGI dinosaur scene. All of this could quickly become overbearing, so it’s thankful then that Malick focuses these grand concepts through the prism of a single family growing up in 1950s suburbia. We follow three boys struggling between the contrasting warmth of their mother (Jessica Chastain), and the stern harshness of their father (Brad Pitt). Meanwhile, a massively under-utilised Sean Penn plays an adult version of one of the brothers as he reflects back on his youth. Rather than follow a tight narrative, Malick distils childhood down to a sequence of key images and memories. We’re shown the children’s first steps, their first comprehension of death and their first experiences of guilt. At its best, it’s one of the most successful, powerfully universal, depictions of growing up that I’ve ever seen put to film. Visually, it’s also a masterclass in cinematography that’s worth anybody with an interest in film taking a look at.
Perhaps unsurprisingly for a film that so boldly sets out to ponder the meaning of existence, it sometimes stumbles short of its aims. The film’s final act, which sees the cast wander through a metaphorical beach, quickly falls into the trap of overstatement - using ten shots where one simple shot would do. Sometimes less is more, and the film is at its worst when this lesson is forgotten. Let there also be no doubt that this is a film that will quickly put off many. If you think extended shots of nature to the sound of booming classical music and the whispering of quasi-mystical phrases sounds a little pretentious, you’d be completely right. In many ways this feels like the film Malick has been building up to making his whole career, and now he’s there the result is undeniably self-indulgent. However, these same flaws are also some of the aspects that make the film intriguing. It’s a rare joy to see such personal yet big budget auteur cinema coming out of America these days. While the film’s endlessly upward gaze may eventually grow tiresome, it’s refreshing to see a film so unashamedly reach for the sky. A defiantly flawed, sometimes magical, work of art.