POTENTIALLY LIFE CHANGING : "THE TREE OF LIFE"

Right boys and girls, I gave you a bit of a break, but now I have to review this. I must. But, as I said, take heart, it’s the last Terrance Malik you’ll hear of for a while. Besides, chances are you have tried out a few of his films and you are now as excited about these films as I am. Well, I can dream… I mean, yes, I do realise that Terrance Malik is not by any definition of the word the easiest director to indulge in. But if you take the time to get used to his style and his work, the films will end up taking you to places you never even imagined going. I read a review of the film saying that Malik is the proof that cinema can aspire to art. I feel I have to agree… Now, I have had a few friends and relations that have watched this film. I have eagerly asked them what it is about. They have had great difficulty explaining. “You should watch it. It’s about a family and… Oh it’s complicated.” This intrigues me rather than putting me off so I went ahead and watched it anyway. The thing is, I tend to agree. It is rather hard to explain what this one is about. But let me give it a shot anyway. The film is basically about struggling to find answers in the modern world. It is about religion, God, ethics. But not in a stuffy and philosophical way. We follow the lives of a family in Texas, in the 1950s, thought the flashbacks of the family’s eldest son (Sean Penn). The mother is gentle and kind, the father (Brad Pitt), though not a bad man, is a very strict and very difficult to live with. His approach to life is very, very different from his wife’s and their two drastically different approaches to life struggle to this day in their adult son who is feeling lost and trying to find answers in the modern world. Now, I respect any opinions you may have on Malik’s style. You might find it pretentious or a little heavy. But first of all, I mean, you simply HAVE to concede the fact that his cinematography and imagery are nothing short of stunning. There are entire sequences where you can just randomly stop the film at some point and any frame you land on could be considered a work of art. Plus, given the subject matter of the film, it would be very difficult to undertake the discussion in a very concrete way without somehow looking… False. Corny. You know what I mean. This is the trouble with this kind of thing though; when emotions are so deeply involved drawing an accurate picture of them is so hard… Malik succeeds in this, drawing beautiful pictures that are completely alive, full of pieces of actual real life. I even saw some instances, small but stunning in their realism, that reminded me of my own childhood. I told my mother about these and asked her what she thought; I have to say she was both surprised and impressed. So, be ready to find be surprised. To find something in the film you never expected to see with your two eyes. And don’t rush as you watch it. Just go with the flow, let the emotion slowly build up and take you over. It is not so much a film but an experience. An experience that has the potential to be mind - blowing.