(Indeed babies have feet)The "Tree of Life" Starring Sean Penn & Brad Pitt, well starring in the loosest sense of the word, is a strange exercise at jerking off into the camera. Terrance Malick wishes he was Stanley Kubrick, Darren Aronofsky, or a David Attenborough nature documentary but he isn't. He's just a jumbled mess of ideas too afraid of a real story because of his 'reputation' as an 'artist' that he feels he needs to play around instead of directing a well structured well thought out film.
The trailer teases us with the idea that the film has a plot or a structure. Even as loose as it seems. And the poster teases us that the film will be an experience you may never forget...but 5 minutes after I left the film I felt myself struggling to remember one worthwhile moment. And as original as the cinematography me seem any cinefile can pick out that every ham handed sequence is an homage to Stanley Kubrick's "2001:A Space Odyssey", Darren Aronofsky's "The Fountain" (which I realize uses techniques from 2001) and Koyanisquatsi. If you've seen those films & loved all of them; you'll still probably hate this one. Why...? Because "The Tree of Life" doesn't do what it tries any differently or better than the 3. And it doesn't even have the best parts of the 3 at all. And part of the film (& I use the term 'film' loosely) remind me of "Enter the Void" how light floats into light...it's all very interesting...when it's suppose to have a purpose.
Reviewing this film is like reviewing a painting that's just one shade of blue. The film is an unstructured mess, with little to no dialog & a sporadic voice over that feels like desperate poetry with no rhyming words. It's as if Malick is afraid to have dialog. Like the characters are all supposed to relatable everyman types and the most baroque arch types imaginable; angsty children, aggressive fathers, sweet mothers, all existing in a poorly thought out tableau of the 1950's. The beauty shots of nature are couple with opera as if we need something to accent what already looks good in the first place or as if he saw it in 2001 and knew it worked and thought no body would notice. I enjoy nature documentaries, films that bridge time barriers, films with meditative moments, & films about the 1950's. This is the worst of all of them.
The opening of the film I can't really remember well. I'm being honest in the mess of images crammed into the screen I cannot recall the first one.
Okay trying to figure this out..........the opening introduces some young boys 3, one of them dies, we don't know why. Pretty shots of flowers, grass, clouds and stuff.
The cinematographer and sound design team were robbed. Had they been working with a director who knew what he wanted "The Tree of Life" could have been an experience unmatched by most films. But the film and talent behind it where a waste. Brad Pitt is underused and Sean Penn isn't even in the film. Yes he's their sitting down. But he does nothing. Not that his character is pointless it's literally just their. He's probably in less than 4 minutes of the entire film. The trailer lies. It isn't a film about a father in 50's it's Malik playing around with pretty images and loose fitting stories. Without further stalling for time...
(Now I remember)
The film opens with a quote from the book of Job...now we know we're in trouble.
* The film opens with some pretty shots and the death of one of Brad Pitt's 3 sons. We don't know how he died but we assume it will be revealed later in the film. We just hear whispering voice over and see Brad Pitt cry.
* Then we flash forward to apparently Brad Pitt's eldest son in the future, played by Sean Penn...he's sad, he needs a sandwich and a hug. That's what we've established. And that his father's still alive cause we hear him talking on the phone, we're not sure why.
(The best part of the movie) *A long sequence of stars, lights, explosions, volcanos, nature, and what appears to be the director trying to show us how the earth was created. And then it ends with some dinosaurs. (Not well animated and in environments that are from modern times, so really out of place and poorly thought out, but fun to watch.)
*Then it cuts back to Sean Penn and we establish that he's working on something...I guess they never explain what it is really.
*The boy's grow up...one of them is born and plays around as a baby with bugs and his mother.
*Brad Pitt is a fierce agressive statuesque image of a 1950's struggling businessman father trying to teach his sons everything he knows about his way of life. Brad is good as a dad, he plays one well and you can see the love in his eyes even though his eldest son doesn't seem too and regrets him.
*The son dies (I won't reveal how) And it is sad. The eldest brother who was already resentful and angry since his brothers birth now turns aggressive and angst filled. He lashes out at his father, teases and picks on his younger brother and plays around with riff raff that do what boys do, play with fire works and throw rocks at houses.
*He hurts his brother and seems to spiral into that cold level of madness that pre-teens get into that if they hear their parents argue one more time they'll run away.
*The father gets very aggressive punishes the kids and tries to hit one.
*A montage that reminds us he's a good guy of him playing with his sons, voiced over by the eldest one who apparently hates him...the way a child would conceive hate I'm sure.
*The father goes off to work
*They are raised by their mom for a while, they play around then the eldest son lashes out at her, steals something of hers and is very mean to her saying cruel things about how she lets her husband (his father) walk over her so why can't he. Typical things children from broken homes wonder that I've experienced and don't care to see on film.
* more angst stuff happens
* Crazy beach sequence some beach that's supposed to be heaven apparently or something has a bunch of people their including Brad Pitt and the older version of his son for some reason. (This is the point in the film where I kept going...what, if he's in heaven did we even see him die, it's just a beach...what's so special about it, why is the mom whispering about the meaning of life...what's the point of this sequence)
*then the movie ended...after the parents move away cause the dad lost his job. (oh forgot to mention the Dad has patents for machines and wants to be rich, we don't know why or what the machines are but he talks about them, and works at a plant, I don't know what the plant does, so eventually he gets downsized and moves away.)
*The end...and I couldn't have ran out of the theatre faster.
(If I missed something I'm sorry but the film was such a mess of images I'm sure I did. Oh the film is bridged with this shot of light...kind of looks like the reflection on a nightlight in the film but purple.*)
(If you're wondering why this review did the lame thing of bullet pointing the plot moments of the film it's because that's how the film is structured.)
-The film will say is genuine. I'm sure Malick thought he was doing something special and never seen before.
. . . Okay this conversation sums up my review. . . (And I kept typos and poor sentences in this review because their are mistakes in structure like this in the film (actually I'm just kidding I'm being lazy, you know a loose structure...just like the film has)...yes mistakes...there is a dinosaur walking around a river bank, behaving more like a person than an animal & the river bank has rocks on it that are washed smooth and clean and their aren't any large plants or weather that would have been around during dinosaur times. It's just a regular river they shot as a clean plate and animated animals by it. And as I say below; soap, appliances, and light switches in a 50's home that look to my eye as modern as ever...even though they might not be. It threw me out of the film.)
Daniel Krone No plot structure. Just watch a nature documentary. Or 2001 A Space Odyssey.about an hour ago ·- Daniel Krone Sean Penn isn't in the film. He's in like 3 minutes of it and doesn't say a word. He does nothing. He's pointless. He's just their so they can have him in the trailer and advertise like he was important. Brad Pitt does stuff but after the first little bit I just said, I get it now get on with it. It's horrible.about an hour ago ·
- Daniel Krone If 2001: A Space Odyssey was Jimmy Hendrix. Tree of Life is Justin Bieber singing 'All along the Watchtower'. It's an impatience inexperienced twat trying to do the same thing.about an hour ago ·
- Daniel Krone 5 minutes of the film are worth a damn. 5 whole minutes. And that 5 minutes is nature shots with opera behind them, because they're pretty...that's it.about an hour ago ·
- Daniel Krone His activism comes across as fake, he always seems to have hate in his eyes in interviews, he punches paparattziabout an hour ago ·
Briant Sawyer I'd go as far to say that he has a screw loose. Russel Crowe was the same way. He threw a phone, but is an amazing actor.about an hour ago ·- Daniel Krone He's a talented man whose bad days are often caught in the public eyeabout an hour ago ·
- Daniel KroneI try not to judge anyone. I've seen footage of Quentin Tarantino going off his rockers at people...but I've seen hours of footage of him being a nice guy. Sean Penn seems to be that rare breed of celebrity that really wants to be a normal person but it gets under his craw that he is famous so he takes it out on people. At least that's what it seems. I just can't stand egos in any regard. I work in an industry of replaceable people. Even Sean Penn and when I hear horror stories of people treating other people who've done nothing wrong like they're beneath them and dull it gets to me. However like I said. I paid today to see him in a highly mixed reviewed film. Because I said...about an hour ago ·
- Daniel Krone Sean Penn wouldn't be in a film with an aweful script and Brad Pitt wouldn't be in a film with an aweful script...but they both were.about an hour ago ·
- Daniel Krone Yet both men of great talents picked a film that failed on almost every level. Were the film in the hands of a better director I have no doubt that both of those actors would have participated in a masterpiece and I think they saw the potential...but I must say potential unrealized and wasted. The whole time I kept saying...it could have been something special. It 'could have been'.about an hour ago ·
- Daniel Krone Imagine for a second if Warren Haynes was a backup guitarist for a boy band. It's that level of wasted talent this film had in it. An epic level of wasted talent.about an hour ago ·
Max La Bella A gorgeous masterpiece in filmmaking. Beautiful, thought provoking, different, increibly directed / acted / shot.about an hour ago ·- Daniel Krone If every frame of the film was Sean Penn but still directed the way it was and still edited the way it was and knowing Penn is your favorite actor...I wouldn't have recommended it. I'd rather watch 'Milk' or 'Dead Man Walking' those films are what Penn does best.about an hour ago ·
- Daniel KroneMax I do happen to disagree. Every image in that film I've seen in another films and better. The nature shots are beautiful, some scenes with Brad Pitt and his sons are done very well...but the rest is runny and dry with no sense of pacing or awe past the first 30mins. I will say the first 30mins did have me on the edge of my seat anticipating limitless potential of the film. It's a series of vignettes. If it tickled your fancy I'm very happy you got more out of it than me. But I kept waiting for it to happen. And at one point the friend I saw it with said...wait, where the hell's Sean Penn gone...was that it? Then I knew the film suffered. Because for a moment we who watch films often and artistic films were lost as to what the film we were seeing was trying to do or supposed to be about. Or when I said 'what a minute what's that for?' Some art films aren't for everyone, but I'd rather just watch Koyanisquatsi and then a film about the 50's than a film that tried to cram those two things into one. The first 30mins of the film made me smile and surprised me. The last hour and whatever it is...had me waiting for something to happen that never did, it just ended on a beach apparently some sort of poetic metaphor that I didn't care to know. It's a filmic Walt Whitman poem. And if I wanted to bask in the glow of poetry on film I'd watch "The Dead Poets Society." Brad Pitt was fine, the boys acted fine, but I've explored trees as a child, caught animals as a child, the film succeeded in reminded me I exist but I'm reminded of that every day. And that opera goes good with just about anything in film...but I didn't like it. The nature shots are beautiful...breathtakingly
so to the point my jaw dropped. But all it did was make me want to watch 2001. And the dinosaur by the river sequence had no sense in the whole of the film...and that environment isn't what it would have looked like. There was also too much angst. There needs to be scenes of levity for scenes of pain to work well and their wasn't. Besides I gave up on authenticity when the yellow bottle of dial soap was sitting in the 1950's kitchen. Despite that the light switches, culinary devices, and soap may all have been around in the 50's. It threw me off and outside of the dress and cars and lack of TV I never felt a sense of place or time. Or understanding. When almost ever line of a human voice is in voice over and the dialog is pointless than I loose faith in a film. The characters were all arch types of every men. But non I could sink my teeth into as part of the story. Happy you liked it. If it makes money maybe Malik's next film will be good. I loved 'The Thin Red Line' it's poetic and beautiful but that poetry is rooted within a story structure as thin as it might be. This one I didn't see the same way. Brads character failed at whatever his vague goal was. He has an awkward 'Fight Club' moment with his kids. And the kids are the same angst filled kids I grew up with. Nothing made me feel that sense of awe an mystery about the universe that other film already have that I can't feel with my own mortality. And I'm done. I could talk for days about the merits of good camerawork and good sound, and good music and how to me they don't mean crap without a good story. But Potatoes, it's all my very long opinion anyways. Happy you enjoyed it. :) about an hour ago · - Max La Bella Damn! That's a review. Honestly, most of the problems I have for it are excused because it's Malick. I wasn't expecting a narrative. I was expecting a Malick. And that's what I got. The beauty of life in 2 hours. For the most part, though, I understand where you are coming from.56 minutes ago ·
- Daniel Krone I got all of that sense of awe and beauty in the first 30mins. If they had a blu-ray of the first 30mins of 'Tree of Life" I'd buy it. After 30mins the film drug on and on for me. I sat through 'The American' and got something out of it too. Most of the theatre was asleep in that one.54 minutes ago ·
- Daniel Krone What's your favorite Malick film beside this one? I've only seen "Red Line" and own that one. (The blu-ray transfer is damn near perfect) But what's another good one to check out ?54 minutes ago ·
- Daniel Krone Oh...I guess I guess I own his best. I'll check out "Days of Heaven" and "Badlands" later then. *.*53 minutes ago ·
- Daniel Krone Wait Max you just caught me with a sense of 'awe' in the universe...a healthy debate on the internet that doesn't end in childish insults...wow.49 minutes ago ·
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