"Tree of Life"

I just saw it and the visuals are exquisite. There were segments scattered around that made me think Kubrick would have done this with 2001 if he'd had the technology back in '68. The cinematography is groundbreaking with its many original sights and perspectives. He keeps you off balance but in a good way.

And the underlying issue is laid out with the opening quote from the book of Job:
"Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?...What supports its foundations, and who laid its cornerstone as the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?"

The movie wrestles with the question as Job does, about why bad things happen to good people. This continues to question God about it and perhaps inches a little bit ahead of Job (even though there IS an answer ), but I think it's more about reiterating the question rather than finding an answer.

The only real negative was Pitt's character was really pissy at times to the point of being distracting, even though I guess it was necessary. His performance was stellar as usual. Penn, with a small role, was there looking dour the whole time, which he's expert at, until the end. There's a lot going on and I didn't get it all much less able to remember it all (I heard a woman ask her husband as they were walking out of the theater "Well, did you get it?" ), but it's well worth seeing, and with all the visuals it's best viewed in a theater. (9/10)

One of the other things going on was the title, The Tree of Life, which is of course a biblical reference to the tree in the Garden of Eden of which we must not eat or else we'd live forever. So why shouldn't we live forever? Another question for God, but this one is fairly straight forward--we can't live forever isolated from God in these bodies. That, and the fact that we get more and more set in our ways in just 70 years, which is bad even if we're right all the time.

Something else about the title, even though it was an obvious biblical reference what with the Job references and all, I kept going to the image of the pagan Mother Tree (whatever they called it) in Avatar. Not sure if Malick had that in mind, just sayin'.

Oh yeah, the Tree of Souls.



The two movies do have a connection in the quality of their visuals, if not the quality of their messages.

I thought from what I remembr that eating from the tree of life is what caused us to not live forever. But before that we werent supposed to know death?

Yes, except it was the tree of knowledge of good and evil that they ate the fruit from. One of the things they acquired knowledge of was the fact that they were going to die--something the innocent (the very young and rest of the animal kingdom that don't have self awareness) don't know. They never got to eat of the tree of life and keeping them from it was at least one reason why they were expelled. I guess one could say that, if we use our self-awareness properly (and the free will it gives is), we might be able to partake of the Tree of Life during this life, which would allow us to live forever afterwards.

Early Genesis seems to possess a prescient wisdom before its time, understanding the implications and rarity of self-awareness.

Okay, I finally saw this, and it's pretty good, but not as good as Malick's other masterpiece, "The Thin Red Line", which pretty much uses the same poetic form of camera work and visuals, but with more substance in the interspersed plot. Although I did love the music in this one.

After watching it again, I moved it up to a 9.5. I think the substance is there, very simple but profound.

I think this movie has grown on me. I probably need to see it again too. I am not much of a "see it again" type, but, if nothing else, I get to listen to the amazingly beautiful music in this one.