by Brian Kesler
In many ways, Terrence Malick reminds me a lot of my favorite director, Stanley Kubrick. He's a perfectionist, he makes a film only once every several years, he is totally hands on and involved, he uses wide angle lenses for close-ups and medium shots, and he tackles subject matter that is important, risky, and very ambitious. This film rivals '2001: A Space Odyssey' in terms of ambition. In fact, you could say this is the long-lost companion film to Kubrick's science-fiction masterpiece. They both jump from prehistoric times to modern and futuristic times, and they both ask compelling questions on the nature of our place in the universe. Where '2001' is cold and scientific, 'Tree of Life' is warm and religious. They are perfect companion pieces.
The film opens with a theory that every living things follows the rules of nature or the rules of grace. Jessica Chastain is the mother, and Brad Pitt is the father, and they get a letter in the late '50s, telling them their son has died. The film rewinds to the creation of the universe, the big bang, the development of landscapes on earth, the birth of the sun, single-celled organisms, life in the sea, and the discovery of shore, after which dinosaurs roam the earth and become extinct after an asteroid crashes into the ocean. This sequence is long and set to classical music - in the style of Kubrick - and reminded me of a similar chain of events drawn by the master animators of the early Disney studio in the classic 'Fantasia.' The film fast-forwards to the late '40s, documenting the birth of the couple's first son, and the two consecutive sons, and the journey of life from naive infant, discovering new things and seeing the world with a fresh pair of eyes; to childhood, playing to your heart's content, but knowing something is wrong, something bad is happening to you; to teenagerhood, being confused by the contradictory nature of adult rules and adult philosophy, struggling with a belief in God, hormones that you mustn't talk about, and the constant fascination with violence; to adulthood, plagued with cynicism and the loss of innocence.
Jessica Chastain represents grace (literally depicted as a floating angel in one sequence), where Brad Pitt represents nature. Some have complained that his character is almost too much a stereotypical wife-beater, when in fact, he's a well portrayed vision of a man struggling with his addiction to control and his need of love and pity. There are two scenes showing the children being woken up by their parents. Chastain wakes them up by dropping ice cubes down their shirts as they laugh and giggle. Pitt storms into the room and pulls the sheets from the bed without saying a word. It's difficult to see these children smiling as infants as they take their first steps to then being afraid to speak or smile in front of their father.
As I said before, the film deals with the belief in God, especially in a scene where the eldest son, not older than 13, sees the hatred that plagues the adult world and asks God, "Why do I have to be good if you're not." It's a profoundly personal film with big questions regarding faith. There is voice-over narration throughout, whispered by the characters, speaking to God and asking him: Why? They will never know the answer, but the eldest son, played later in the film by Sean Penn as a modern financial capitalist, gets a glimpse into the afterlife, as he transcends dimensions and witnesses his mother giving her dead son from so long ago to God.
There are many things in 'The Tree of Life' that are up to interpretation, more so - even - than with '2001,' which has become pretty consistently explained. It's a movie that should be seen with an open mind, a mind ready for exercise, a mind ready to explore its own questions on faith and the universe. It's a movie that should be seen twice, three times, examined and studied and pondered. These are the kinds of movies that are important and it is imperative that we are open to seeing them and benefiting from their philosophy.
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