To the Wonder (2013)
Directed by Terrence Malick
Neil is torn between two loves: Marina, the European woman who comes to the United States to be with him, and Jane, the old flame from his hometown he reconnects with. Neil’s doubts about his life and loves are reflected in the crisis of faith experienced by Father Quintana, who only sees pain and the loss of hope in the world.
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What critics compared To the Wonder to
That worked in his early films “Badlands” (1973) and “Days of Heaven” (1978), which were just conventional enough to give folks who don’t think of themselves as art-film aficionados something to hang onto in terms of a story.
Awash in the artistic flourishes that heralded genius in “ Badlands ” and “ Days of Heaven ” but nearly suffocated the overpraised “ The Tree of Life ”, Malick’s new film chronicles a young(ish) couple’s tidal love -- here today, gone tomorrow.
Me, I'll stick to my copies of his far superior "Badlands" and "Days of Heaven."
Terrence Malick, the idiosyncratic director of The Tree of Life , Badlands, Days of Heaven , The New World , and The Thin Red Line, probably has as many detractors as he has admirers.
In truth, he’s come up with his purest vision -- and his most streamlined work since Badlands.
Until now, Malick’s films applied these ruminations to the past: The ’50s of his youth (The Tree Of Life) and the Starkweather-Fugate murder spree (Badlands); the battle of Guadalcanal (The Thin Red Line); the Great Depression (Days Of Heaven); the founding of Jamestown (The New World).
He’s referring to Terrence Malick’s To the Wonder, a mediation on love and nature that arrives in Toronto theatres next week.
I don’t know what Carruth intended — and I’m not sure he does either — but “Upstream Color” gets into an area that feels very much like religion, and in a way that Terrence Malick’s similarly fragmentary and more heavy-handed “ To the Wonder ” tries to, and fails.
But it's uncanny that Terrence Malick 's "To the Wonder" should open today as well, because the thing Malick fails at doing -- creating a new kind of structure -- is exactly where Carruth succeeds, to an extraordinary and deeply affecting degree.
If anything, the film that Upstream Color most resembles isn’t Primer, but actually Malick’s latest film To the Wonder.
It's an interesting coincidence that the movie opens in Memphis the same day as Malick's " To the Wonder ": Both features are philosophical, elliptical and purely cinematic.
It would make a terrific double bill with Malick’s new “To the Wonder,” which is also a flawed, gorgeous and enigmatic love story.
It’s an intriguing evolution for Cosmatos, the director sticking with what can be construed as a signature filmmaking style yet now determined to ground it in an ethereal, metaphorically psychosomatic atmosphere reminiscent of the recent, even more esoteric than normal offerings of vaunted director Terrence Malick (Song to Song, Knight of Cups , To the Wonder).
Zhao’s style could be described as documentary-like — her reliance on new non-professional actors and dedication to documenting life as how it is lived by many certainly could give one that impression — but I tend to see her work as closer to later-period Terrence Malick, whose “Modern Life Is Rubbish” trilogy ( To the Wonder , Knight of Cups , Song to Song ) strikes a similar chord of melancholy restlessness.
Nomadland wanders the same American landscape as Badlands , Days of Heaven , To the Wonder , and Knight of Cups , asking similar questions about being-in-the-world, human meaning-making, and what Walker Percy calls “the search” in his novel, The Moviegoer .
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Surprisingly, Noe seems to be channeling Terrence Malick for a change, offering up an atheistic (and X-rated) twist on “To the Wonder,” with its hovering camera, gobbledygooky narration and melancholy choice between two women, neither of whom he deserves.
But the work by cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki (“To The Wonder”), production designer Jack Fisk (“Tree of Life”) and costume designer Jacqueline West (“The New World”) demonstrates the determination of Iñárritu as well.
I honestly hope the “sublime” trend ends soon, with the recent output of Terrence Malick, his bombastic, excessive Tree of Life and To the Wonder, and gaseous muck like Cloud Atlas, cramming together years of history and a speculative look to the future, to signify nothing.
But I expected no less, because Cuar?n worked on the film for four years with the great cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, the man who captured those amazing artistic sights for Tree of Life and To the Wonder .
Working with lightboxes, robotic rigs and wires to suspend and reflect light upon the actors, cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki's ("Children of Men," "To the Wonder") cameras appear to operate almost non-stop, following, circling and closing in the action so as to give the audience the impression they're right within the scene.
Frightfully claustrophobic and disorienting in the best way, the cinematography by Emmanuel Lubezki (2013's " To the Wonder ") is immaculate, bringing intimacy as well as grandeur to its unforgettable tableau.
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Buffeted by its setting in an interesting near future time, “Her” has the feel of something from Terrence Malick (see “To The Wonder”) with a meandering story that tries to question the nature and definition of true love.
In the first installment, They argued about Terrence Malick’s To the Wonder.
Aunque las actuaciones no son nada especial y el uso constante de música para potenciar el impacto de las escenas acaba irritando, el apartado estético es impecable, con muchas semejanzas con Malick y la fotografía de Emmanuel Lubezki en El árbol de la vida y To the Wonder .