Dir. Terrence Malick
(2011, PG-13, 139 min)
There are a lot of ideas contained within Terrence Malick‘s The Tree of Life, so many that I couldn’t keep hold of any one for long. I’m not sure Malick does either. It opens with tragedy: Mrs. O’Brien (Jessica Chastain), a suburban mother, receives a telegram informing her that her middle son has died. What follows is a montage of mourning so vague it takes us a while to learn that the boy was nineteen at his time of death, and we never learn the exact cause, though perhaps he was killed in action somewhere – I’m not sure how many other kinds of death notices come by telegram, though not many deliverers of death notices are as nonchalant as this one. Those are the kinds of details that preoccupied me during this film, but never mind that for now. What is important is that a child has died, and the existential journey that follows – tracing, it seems, the birth of the universe and the beginnings of life on Earth – seems to be driven by that terrible grief.
Filmic 