The Tree of Life

Normally after viewing a movie I have a good idea if I should recommend it to my friends shortly after I've seen it. In the case of Director Terrence Malick's new movie "The Tree of Life", I have no idea if I should recommend it to anybody as of yet because I don't even know if I liked it. When I saw it in the theatre, there were three people that walked out in the middle of it, two people who applauded it as it ended and the rest I suspect were like me wondering exactly what it was they just saw. "The Tree of Life" is a movie with little, if any, plot and enormous ambition. It is philosphical, spiritual, ambigous and a bit pretentious. The film shows the start of the universe, dinosaurs, the afterlife (at least I think that's what those scenes were toward the end of the movie), a mother and father raising their three sons in the Eisenhower era in Waco, Texas and the eldest son as an adult struggling with the memories of his disciplinarian father and nurturing mother. There are many moments in this movie of genuine beauty. The scene where the mother is holding her infant second child with her older son, who looks to be no more than two years old, standing next to them while observing and trying to play with his younger brother is more touching than anything I've seen in recent years. Terrence Malick has a great touch in capturing the everyday beauty of life that is most often taken for granted and watching that particular scene made me feel like I was was eavesdropping in on someone's treasured home movie. There are also scenes that I had no idea what they were about or how they fit into the movie and I can't remember the last time I was this confused watching a film. Predictably "The Tree of Life" has received very mixed reviews with some critics calling it a bold masterpiece and others calling it a pretentious waste of time. Films like this which are large in scale without a clear narrative storyline almost always get wildly mixed reviews and I will be curious to see if over time "The Tree of Life" is forgotten about or achieves the status of Stanley Kubrick's visionary "2001 A Space Odyssey" which also had walkouts and mixed reviews at the time of its release and is now widely regarded as a masterpiece. I don't know yet how "The Tree of Life" will stand the test of time or if I will like it more when I see it again but I am sure that in making a film of this extraordinary magnitude, Terrence Malick has shown more courage than just about any other filmmaker (this includes James Cameron, Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsesse) today. Nowhere is it said that filmmaking should be only narrative storytelling and with "The Tree of Life" Malick is trying to change the motion picture format and have viewers bring in their own beliefs and upbringings while viewing the film. While I find merit in both the good and bad reviews this film has received, I take exception to those that have said that Malick is making a movie that only he can understand with no concern or respect for the audience. In fact the exact opposite is true. In making a movie that asks the audience to think about the most deeply philosphical questions all of us have to face, Terrence Malick is showing the highest respect for the intelligence of the audience and for this I hope that all fans of the movies will be grateful to him for giving us this film.