The Tree of Life (2011)

The Tree of Life feels like the culmination, and continuation of the themes and ideas that Terrence Malick has grappled with throughout his career. It is an intensely personal and fiercely uncommercial meditation on life, love and death, filtered through Malick's superlative grasp of imagery. A film to be experienced and weighed upon and that offers no clear answers or narrative structure on which to hang your attentions. 
.
Roughly speaking the film follows the memories of the childhood of Sean Penn's Jack, the eldest of three brothers who, as an adult, is still coming to grips with his place in the world and the meaning of his existence. Much of this is implied through, the film is largely dialogue free, its almost wilful disregard for standard filmic convention will be enough to infuriate many, and with some justification. It is nearly an hour in before any two characters exchange real dialogue, even then it is hushed and brief. Malick seems not to care for observing the nature of conversation, instead he attempt to capture moments of truth and beauty in everyday life, his piecing together of Jack's childhood begins with an astonishing extended sequence in which he depicts the beginning of the universe, an operatic and staggeringly beautiful series of vignettes that bring us through the entirety of history to Jack's birth. This entire piece is almost worth seeing the entire movie for, the scope and artistry with which it is constructed is remarkable and never has Malick's control of picture and sound been so clear. Afterwards though he uses the momentum to propel us through Jack's childhood and adolescence, told as almost a slideshow of memories from the small, to the large, but all elements of the man he later becomes. Captivating and confounding in equal measure those hoping for a plot to emerge from the film will find themselves disappointed, the film is less interested in actions than it is behaviour. 
.
Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain play the parents, each, as a voice over early on informs us, representing the two choices one has when living their life, to live by selfless grace, or to embrace nature, where strength and willingness are most highly valued. This dichotomy cuts to the heart of the film with Pitt's contradictory disciplinarian being both a figure of love and affection and fear for his children. In contrast Chastain is a warm and yet passive figure in their lives, she has an elegance and a beauty that Malick loves to film and who infects much of the film with its spiritual leanings. Whilst not strictly adhering to any specific teachings there is no denying the spiritual nature of Malick's ideas as they are presented. He seems to view love as the only way to live, and yet be equally puzzled by its existence in an otherwise cold and undeniably vast universe, and the final sequences of the film hint at a closure that I found extremely moving and hopeful. As a Christian it is easy to imbue my interpretations of the film with my own beliefs, but ultimately that's what great art does and the ambiguous nature of much of the film leaves it open to, and welcoming of, such thinking.
.
The film is quite possibly one of the quietest I have ever experience in a cinema, often even the diegetic sounds of nature are toned right down, almost as if Malick himself is listening in for something, anything else to venture into the scene. Equally the characters' voice-overs, a tradition of his films, frequently take the form of prayers, or ethereal enquiries, as the characters wrestle with the big, unanswerable questions. Yet the real trick to the film is that it doesn't get so bogged down in such metaphysical meanderings so as to become unwatchably pretentious. It asks the big questions, and deals with heady themes, but not at the expense of the humanity on show. The way Jack's childhood is revealed feels honest and natural. Newcomer Hunter McCracken is superb in the role, as are the other brothers, with Malick's roving camera capturing hundreds of tiny little moments that feel real and heartfelt, moulding these into an intimate picture of childhood and existence. The careful editing, to a rhythm and mood rather than for any sense of real continuity, helps further the film's reading as that of a visual poem helping it ring true at a fundamental  human level. The joys, the pain, the anger of youth are all distilled into singular moments there, that build up a picture of life that everyone should be able to recognise and identify with.
.
As should have become clear by now this is definitely not a film for everyone. It is slow and thoughtful, many will find it boring, and justifiably so. Towards the end I felt the film drag at times, extending itself a touch too far, with some repetition of ideas that could easily have been trimmed. Equally the slight nature of many of the characters may leave some cold, for the truth and beauty Malick finds in childhood he also fails, at times, to really dig beyond the surface, especially with Jessica Chastain's character, leaving her more of a symbol than meaningful character.  Still despite these flaws, and the impenetrable nature of the film's construction there is no denying it is a major accomplishment. It is challenging and provocative, sincere and over serious but also touches on deep themes and issues in a way that will long stick with me. There is no other director out there like Terrence Malick and this feels like the film that is most truly him, intensely personal but universal in its themes. If you can get past it's idiosyncrasies and missteps and embrace it as art, then inside, when it works,  lie deep pools of truth and beauty. It feels like food for the soul.