The Tree of Life (2011)
Directed by Terrence Malick
The impressionistic story of a Texas family in the 1950s. The film follows the life journey of the eldest son, Jack, through the innocence of childhood to his disillusioned adult years as he tries to reconcile a complicated relationship with his father. Jack finds himself a lost soul in the modern world, seeking answers to the origins and meaning of life while questioning the existence of faith.
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26 films that influenced The Tree of Life
What critics say influenced The Tree of Life
Advance whispers comparing The Tree of Life to Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey prove to be entirely apt.
Of course, the birth-of-the-universe scenes evoke the chilly grandeur of 2001: A Space Odyssey.
In scenes reminiscent of Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey," Malick sets a soaring soundtrack to swirling images of the cosmos, the formation of the solar system, the cooling of the earth, the genesis of life from the primordial ooze and the development of nature throughout the eons, complete with dinosaurs.
He inserts spaced-out planet-hopping and trippy asides that strongly resemble Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey" and Gaspar Noe's more recent "Enter the Void."
At least in that regard, the film's comparisons to 2001: A Space Odyssey — which Malick courts throughout — could wind up having merit.
In an elaborate special effects sequence that draws obvious and valid comparisons to Kubrick´s "2001: A Space Odyssey" (Douglas Trumbull provided visual effects for both films, working here along with Dan Glass of "Matrix Reloaded"), nebulae expand, galaxies race away from each other, the Earth forms, volcanoes erupt, the planet cools to a point where multi-cellular life emerges, thrives, and then almost be wiped out by a meteor strike.
More specifically, through Jack’s childhood memories so that like Terence Davies’s Distant Voices, Still Lives and The Long Day Closes, the recollections are segmented and combined with small non-naturalistic moments to reflect what impressions remained with Jack into his adult life.
It feels like an unwieldy combination of the “Star Ride” from Kubrick’s 2001 (1968)—minus the LSD-chrome—and the devolvement of Eddie Jessup to the moment of creation in Ken Russell’s Altered States (1980) played backwards at slow speed.
This is Malick's fifth movie since "Badlands," his first and best, back in 1973.
Malick ("Days of Heaven," "Badlands") has always been a master craftsman at conveying the cadence of nature.
“Badlands” (1973) is set in the nineteen-fifties; “Days of Heaven” (1978) unfolds in the early twentieth century, showing soldiers heading off to the First World War; “The Thin Red Line” (1998) takes place before and during the Battle of Guadalcanal; and “The New World” (2005) summons us to the age of Pocahontas.
Writer-director Terrence Malick has made just four other features in 38 years - "Badlands," "Days of Heaven," "The Thin Red Line" and "The New World" - all of them woven from the same deliberate and dreamlike fabric.
If you like this, try: the short film “Powers of Ten” and the other films by Terrence Malick including “Days of Heaven” and “Badlands”…
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It’s in these intersections of the domestic and the cosmic that “The Tree of Life” thrums with the kind of profound simplicity Thornton Wilder captured in “Our Town.”
In Days of Heaven and The New World it meant lingering shots that juxtaposed the natural world with the encroaching constructs of man.
Malick ("Days of Heaven," "Badlands") has always been a master craftsman at conveying the cadence of nature.
He followed that up five years later with the beautifully photographed Oscar winner “Days of Heaven.”
"Tree" is deeply Judeo-Christian, as his movies have been since "Days of Heaven," which quotes the Old Testament in the title, and also touches on the stories from the old book.
“Badlands” (1973) is set in the nineteen-fifties; “Days of Heaven” (1978) unfolds in the early twentieth century, showing soldiers heading off to the First World War; “The Thin Red Line” (1998) takes place before and during the Battle of Guadalcanal; and “The New World” (2005) summons us to the age of Pocahontas.
Malick is the much-revered but far from prolific auteur responsible for such thinking-person's epics as Days of Heaven and The Thin Red Line.
No, really: Malick ( The Thin Red Line ) depicts this for us, like something out of Stanley Kubrick’s Jurassic Park .
But without that tether, his talents can meander, as they did in the errant middle portion of The Thin Red Line.
What they add up to is another portrait of a lost Eden, variations of the theme he worked in "The New World" and "The Thin Red Line."
“Badlands” (1973) is set in the nineteen-fifties; “Days of Heaven” (1978) unfolds in the early twentieth century, showing soldiers heading off to the First World War; “The Thin Red Line” (1998) takes place before and during the Battle of Guadalcanal; and “The New World” (2005) summons us to the age of Pocahontas.
Those who appreciated the meditations on the meaning of life and humans’ place in the world in Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life will find much to like in Sans Soleil.
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Like the “Rite of Spring” section of “Fantasia” or the famous “Powers of Ten” short film popular with middle school science teachers, it explores the farthest reaches of time and space.
I thought about Davies’ Distant Voices, Still Lives while watching Malick’s more expansive movie.