After seeing The Tree Of Life I really didn't know what to make of it. I enjoyed it (to an extent) but I struggled to pinpoint themes and overall meanings. I gathered that it had something to do with the struggle between life and death, the thin line between the two and the nostalgia of childhood.
Brad Pitt plays a strong willed Christian man in 1950s Texas, and is in the midst of an inner struggle between 'grace' and 'nature'. His children live under the tyranny of a strict father but there are some very touching scenes between the family, the two eldest sons in particular, that show there are strongly established and tender family bonds.
Using shaky camera angles shot from below looking up at the actors, Malick directs the audience's view up to the action as if we were looking through the eyes of a child. I actually felt like a child for most of the film as visual metaphor after visual metaphor flashed before my eyes and I had no idea what they were supposed to represent.
There is a very strong theme of nostalgia, not only through the use of the camera angles but through the use of editing; there were lots of fragmented and abstract scenes, like half forgotten dreams or memories (much like one of the movie posters). There was also a lot of reference to the dilemma of faith, such as why do bad things happen to good people?
The characters pray to God for things to happen but when things don't happen as they would like or expect they reject him. I think the little boy with the burnt head epitomizes much of this dilemma; at the beginning of the film the viewer feels sorry for him and we are made to question why something so horrific happened to someone who obviously didn't deserve it. But by the end of the film I realised that yes, bad things happen, but the little boy is fine now and life just goes on.
When I first left the cinema I thought the film would be like marmite, you either love it or you hate it, but then I realised I wasn't even sure myself if I'd liked or disliked it; it had just... happened. I am a self confessed lover of arty and pretentious films but after two hours of being bombarded by visual metaphors, lack of conversation and regular intervals of high pitched opera singing, sometimes even I thought I had had enough. To be honest, I didn't really know what was going on half the time, I don't even think Malick knew what was going on half the time, but it looked so beautiful that I didn't even care.
"Halfway through the creation scenes, she let out a big “fuck this shit” and walked out, seemingly furious."
Found this in an informal review of the film. The reviewer was sat in the cinema with one other woman, and the creation scenes are only about twenty minutes in to the film. It made me laugh so much because I completely understand.
