The Tree of Life (2011)

It's difficult to write about something when you don't fully understand it, so I've delayed my writing of a review of "The Tree of Life" for some time now, but as the film was just nominated for three Academy Awards (all in categories for which I believe those nominations were deserved), it's time for me say something.

When discussing "The Tree of Life" with a co-worker, I suggested that it is the kind of movie that, if you showed it to 10 friends, one would like it. So, does that make it a failure of a movie? After all, hundreds of films of far less quality - those frequently starring "Saturday Night Live" alums, for example - are adored by moviegoers in far greater numbers. I've thought a lot about that. And I've wavered on the conclusions I've drawn from that internal debate.

So what do I think of "The Tree of Life"? Well first, I think it is a true work of art, a piece of filmmaking that transcends its genre and method of delivering information. And I celebrate the vision of director Terrence Malick, who does not seem to have been forced to compromise any of his personal vision when making the film.

But what's wrong "The Tree of Life," oddly enough, are the same two things. More on that in a minute.

There's a difficulty in offering a plot summary for Malick's "messy masterpiece" other than to say that after about an hour of this slowly-paced film expires, some semblance of a plot finally begins to emerge. That plot is intentionally generic and features a stern father (played by Brad Pitt) lording over his modest, middle class household in 1950s Waco, Texas. His three sons fear him and desperately crave affection from him. His wife (Jessica Chastain) fears him, too, and lavishes affection on her boys to supplant the lack of it from their father.

The oldest son, Jack (played as a boy by the riveting Hunter McCracken) seems the most damaged by distance his father creates between the parents and the boys, and is most frequently the object of the father's cold life lessons and lectures on the world's harsh realities. We see Jack as an adult in flashes throughout the film, played by Sean Penn, with a lost look in his eyes. Even if we can't explain how and why, we know that his relationship with his father continues to hold influence over him as an adult.

Brad Pitt is nominated for Best Actor this year for his excellent work in "Moneyball," but I strongly believe that his work in this film is not only his better performance from 2011, but the finest acting work of his career. His ability to communicate the classic masculinity of fathers of this generation is without a misstep; he communicates emotional detachment and profound love for his family simultaneously and understands the conflict that a man has when faced with the challenge of hardening his son for the sake of survial in this world but trying to nurture as well. I never felt the threat of abuse from Pitt, and yet one could argue that the whole experience was abusive.

And not only was Pitt's performance one of my favorites of the year, but the rest of the cast is fantastic as well, which is made all the more impressive when you consider that Malick does not give them large amounts of dialogue or anything that resembles a classic story structure to build their characters upon.

Malick intercuts this family's daily moments with sun-soaked images of nature. The unbelievable cinematography of Emmanuel Lubezki (who I believe deserves to win the Oscar) presents mundane landscapes with saturated colors and awe-inspiring appeal, reminding us that these things were created by an Awesome God. Various cast members pass fleeting and whispered lines of voiceover, all presumably directed toward their Creator. Many of these voiceover moments are in the form of challenging questions: why. And the audience of this film is forced to do what we all must do in real life, which is take in our surroundings, search our hearts and minds, and suggest an answer to ourselves, based on whatever we perceive to be evidence.

Much as been written about the front half of the film, which leaps backward in time to the very creation of life and features everything from micro-organisms to dinosaurs. The best we can make of it is that Malick wanted to show how all of this is connected, and he wanted to do it all in one place. It's a wonder to watch but it's sloppy. The visuals are stunning and kalidoscopic, but at the expense of narrative, almost completely.

This brings me to the two points I made early in my review.

When I said that "The Tree of Life" transcends its method of delivering information, I'm talking about the fact that Malick attempts to do things with cinema that cinema is not traditionally built for, and this is why most people won't appreciate the film. I think most people would agree that it's beautiful, but there won't be a patience or a tolerance for it. Why? Because "The Tree of Life" is film as a poem is to a short story or novel. This is a visual poem, plain and simple. It breathes in the cracks between what we see and the questions we have about what is happening. It lacks a traditional cinematic three-act narrative. It observes existence in non-sequential snapshots.

Movies, on the whole, are not designed to communicate poetry. They're built for stories. If you try to make "The Tree of Life" into a "story" by traditional defnition, it will fail. In other words, the film was not made for the genre and we were not made for it. And yet here we all are, staring at this wonderful work and trying to figure out what to make of it. It feels a lot like staring at a Pollack in a modern art gallery and attempting to explain it.

My second point was that "The Tree of Life" seems to have allowed Terrence Malick complete control over his vision. As a lover of auteur films, this is a pure thrill. But there's a downside as well, and this is the fact that Malick seems to have made the film with little regard for what his audience would - or even could - get out of it. This begs the question: Does a film director have a responsibility to consider an audience when making a film. Or, more broadly, does an artist have a responsibility to create art for an audience? Apparently, Malick doesn't think so.

But if I'm being honest, the cinema is a delivery mechanism of storytelling for the masses. It is, at its core, a collaborative medium of artistic expression, no matter how singular the vision of the director or writer. And in that way, "The Tree of Life" is too challenging of an anomaly to the chosen method of its presentation as a movie. But then, how else could this message be communicated?

I always feel like there's a direct correlation between the quality of a movie and the time I spend after consuming it thinking about it. Many movies are empty calories. This one is not. And by that measuring stick, "The Tree of Life" has got to be one of the most incredible movies ever filmed. But movies are meant to entertain and satisfy on an emotional level. "The Tree of Life," I felt, aimed for the soul instead of the heart, and I doubt many viewers are willing to afford Malick the time and a mind open enough for that connection to happen for them.

A four-star review is usually reserved for a movie that is perfect in every way, or at least imperfect in only trivial ways. "The Tree of Life" is not perfect. It's left me awed but confused, exhilirated and exhausted. But I would watch it again. Multiple times. Because when you strip down the visual poetry and the conceits of a cinematic artist, it's a conversation between a man and his two makers: his earthly father and his heavenly father. And however inaccessible "The Tree of Life" might be, this core message is universal.

4.0 out of 4