20160401 (movie review)

By no means is this a timely review, but I'm catching up on some goodies

Prompted by a WatchMojo list of the

Ten most beautiful movies I

Watched “The Tree of Life”

Yesterday and came away 

With a few thoughts. The

Flick inspired many which

Have already been discussed.

These are some of mine. For

A movie I would characterize

First as bombastic, it was 

Indeed beautiful and not

Just in all the special effects

Shots as one would expect

But also in the closeups

And long views down the

Waco streets, the way the

Camera lingered on the

Architecture of their home.

They did advise me to set

The sound level at loud. For

A while I wondered why, but

As so many of the voice-overs

Were spoken as whispers

(Thoughts) and the music 

Swelled behind them at a

Comfortable level one 

Will easily miss a lot of the

Guidance given. In keeping

With the double standard

In movies Sean Penn is 

Given higher billing than

Jessica Chastain who to my

Mind carried the burden of

Deft acting at least comparably

To Brad Pitt who has more

Lines where Ms.Chastain’s

Role is the dominated wife

Who would be less likely

To talk. Her very expressive

Face reveals so much. Pitt’s

Role as the stolid authority

Figure relies more on body

Language. In the imaging 

Of the world’s end Malick,

The director uses a clip of

Mercury’s transit of the sun

As a black spot traversing

A background of the sun’s

Roiling surface to suggest

The death of earth when 

The sun swells to be a red

Giant cooking the planet

And ending all life. That

Failed for me, so when the

Next image is from a crusted

Earth being lit by the blue

Light of a white dwarf  I

Didn’t connect the two.

Everybody’s experience

Is different; symbols don’t

Always get the recognition

Intended by the director.

Apparently the flick got a

Lot of buzz as “experimental”

When it first hit the screen.

Certainly it did not follow the

Traditional Hollywood story

Methods in its attempt to link

Long range history and 

Speculative cosmology to the

Events in one family’s life.

To me that’s how it fails. I

Enjoyed the experience of

Universal beauty, even the

Gauziness of Penn’s vision

Of reconciliation, but the

Events portrayed of this one

Youngster now grown to 

Maturity, I thought, did not

Sustain the visual appeals 

To majestic universality. I

Was reminded of Arthur Miller’s

Attempt to stretch Aristotle’s

Formula for tragedy in “Death

Of a Salesman, by replacing the

Central noble character with an

Everyman. Had Malick not 

Aimed so high I think he would

Have accomplished more.

c. J.S.Manista, 2016