Palme d’Or Blog #1: The Tree of Life [2011]
Dean and I have decided to watch every movie that has won the Palme d’Or (or an equivalent prize) at the Cannes Film Festival. Last night we watched The Tree Of Life [dir. Terrance Malick, U.S.A.]. This is a film that attempts to compare the human experience to the entire Universe through all of time. That is to say, this is a movie that takes itself very seriously, and comes as close as any mortal-made thing can come to being about Everything. Click ‘read more’ for a questionable and spoiler-filled review.
In the beginning of the movie, this pretty family suffers the loss of one of their sons. A friend tries to console the mother by saying “Life goes on, at least you have the other two,” etc. My reaction was shock at the woman’s incredible insensitivity, even though I knew that what she was saying was/is perfectly true. The movie then asks us to meditate on those conflicting feelings for a good while as we stare at the most beautiful montage of Earth and the Universe through time I have ever seen. [Seeing it on Blu-Ray definitely helped that feature.] After that, we are finally ‘ready’ to actually learn about the family.
At this point, I finally realize that hiring Brad Pitt was actually not a bad idea, because the empty characters quickly begin filling with life and emotion, though mostly angst. The second star of this movie is supposedly Sean Penn, but honestly his role could have been and was more authentically played by that frustrated dad I saw wandering lost around campus the other day. The real co-star in Hunter McCracken, who really did a great job playing the angry, confused kid that at least I know I used to be. The whole father-son-brother dynamic is one I’m personally familiar with. Even though my Dad and my brothers are nothing like the ones in this movie, I have definitely felt the same brand of pride, anger, love, fear, and need for approval that the people in this movie feel. They also effectively made me relive the ‘Girls are new and weird I don’t understand’ phase of my life. [I am now a Casanova.]
The camera work evolves with the characters. The shots and editing do an amazing job of trying to capture the world as the eye and mind really do. Instead of static compositions or constant volleys from face to face, the camera slips and slides around the world, instilling in it a sense of beauty that only babies can usually see. This slippery camera work never goes away, but as Jack gets older and begins to put the world together, it becomes much more linear and lucid.
Malick really went balls deep on this one. I imagine he had frequent meetings with his friends and co-workers where they would throw out any and all reservations, increase the budget, and say ‘yes, let’s get the computer animated dinosaurs, and also have the mom flying around for like two seconds, and also let’s put the house underwater.’
This movie was huge.
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