Day 193: 'Tree of Life'

"Let us consider the Earth in the dark immensity of space in the universe. We can compare it to a tiny grain of sand; more than a kilometer of emptiness extends between it and the next grain of its size; on the surface of this tiny grain of sand lives a stupified swarm of supposedly clever animals, climbing all over each other, who for a brief moment have invented knowledge. And what is a human lifespan amidst millions of years? Barely a move on the second hand, a breath.”
-Martin Heidegger


Writing about 'Tree of Life' is difficult. Difficult not in the sense of most works in the post-modern era; works packed with so many references and allusions so as to get lost in a ourborous of analyzing. The films many branches are impressionistic ones; fleeting engangements with nature that are only connected through other fleeting moments. It's root is without an ideal, other than the ideal of activity and sensory experience. Tree of Life' is, above all else, a testament to simply existing; like the mother (played by Jessica Chastain) of the central family in one scene who lies perfectly still when a butterfly lands on her fingertips;any movement being a telegraphed affront to nature.

'Tree of Life' has long been a pet project of director Terrence Malick's, adding to the collective heaviness and relictance to untangle that has become attached to it. 'Pet project' would be a grossly reductive word for such a film. It did not languish in Hollywood production hell for decades, nor did it suffer from lack of funding(Malick has produced some of the most absorbing, thoroughly anti-commercial films in American history, and his stature continues to draw top actors into his world: Brad Pitt, Mickey Rourke, Sean Penn(twice), Adrien Brody, Nick Nolte, Christian Bale, etc). The decades-long wait is most likely attributed to the films monumental subject matter: Life, in the capital 'L' sense. Malick(in collaboration with an enormous team, including NASA members) illuminates not only the life of an ordinary 1950s family(almost to ordinary: Dad(Brad Pitt) is a stern businessman obsessed with honor, while Mom(Chastain) is a doting housewife) but also the resilient vitality of the Earth, in both its grace and its grotesqueness. Most directors will spend time editing the scenes, looking for emotionally evocative cuts of the actors, or even calling them back to perform again if they find nothing they like It is clear that the wait for 'Tree of Life' is of a different order: The characters are used as complementary props of a universal ideal(Father is nature, Mother is grace), and this is an altogether radically different process; one that will see the director searching for the perfect shading on an azalea and the perfect human expression in equal measure.

What is perhaps most revelatory about 'Tree of Life,' and what makes it the most humane work yet in the filmography of Malick, is his refusal to take sides. Critics have often lambasted Malick for being too heavy handed, too overtly philosophical(this should come as little surprise if the reader is aware of Malick's extensive academic career, which includes a fascination with Heidegger). However, in 'Tree of Life' Malick manages to say nothing at all. It is not nature vs. grace, but nature and grace. It is no accident that the film opens up with a quote from Job, a man who's fallen humbleness is meant to represent us all; none knowing why they have been forsaken or if an answer will ever come . The answer may, in fact, be incompatible with simply existing.

'In 'Tree of Life', the state is given a two hour treatment, and despite the films largely lactose conclusion, it remains so even through the films most undeniably adventurous leap. The final 30 minutes are perhaps the biggest risk that Malick has taken thus far in his career; which is certainly, considering his oeuvre, rather extraordinary. It is utterly bizarre that audiences have sat through early sequences that depict the birth of the universe, take substantial liberties in depicting nature and grace as inherent from the very beginning, among other things; and their have still been reports(and a first hand account, from this writer) of people walking out of the theater during the final sequence. It is a visceral testament to two things: The film itself is inerrable, and you are free to embrace and deny what you wish.

This 'Dark Night of the Soul' may be marginalized in the end, but Malick, even in his brightest moment, does not relinquish the viewer from the responsibility of living. In one scene, during the final sequence, the mother is seen walking on a never-ending gray desert, heading towards nowhere, arms outstretched. IT's unclear whether this is supposed to be a peaceful shot or not(it is most certainly beautiful), but it has to be one of the most unsettling shots put to celluloid. It is in inerrable moments like these, when Malick does not use a voiceover, that 'Tree of Life' finds its most glorious havens; one that rests in the mind of the marrow as well as the brain. ' Keep thy mind in hell, and despair not."