No stars (turkey). Rating: PG-13, for dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 6.3.11
At one point during writer/director Terrence Malick’s unforgivably tedious slog of a movie, Brad Pitt’s Mr. O’Brien — while listening to a favorite piece of classical music, and no doubt wanting to comment upon the elusive search for perfection — explains that the composer recorded it 65 times ... and still wasn’t satisfied.
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| Jack (Hunter McCracken, right) lacks the patience to pull weeds and tend a garden in the exacting manner demanded by his overbearing, short-tempered father (Brad Pitt), who invariably takes the boy's "failings" as a personal slight. |
A dangerous bit of dialogue, to insert into this dull, dreary and disjointed mess.
At my most generous, I might imagine that Malick intends his film to be more tone poem than typical narrative: more mood piece than conventional drama.
But I’m not inclined to be generous. The notoriously fussy Malick filmed this yawner three years ago, then spent the intervening time fine-tuning the footage in the editing bay.
He should have fine-tuned further.
Frankly, he should have given up entirely, and done unsuspecting viewers a favor.
The Tree of Life isn’t just bad; it’s laughably, crushingly awful. Unwatchable. Dull beyond description. Incomprehensible. Self-indulgently ridiculous.
Having said that, I’ve no doubt this film will speak to New Agers who love dissecting every last syllable of every last word in overly pompous poetry. Or, to put it another way, Malick’s approach will be adored by those who found the “star gate” sequence of 2001: A Space Odyssey
to be rich with theological grace.As opposed to the rest of us, who kept checking our watches and wondering when Stanley Kubrick would get on with it, fercryinoutloud.
Kubrick actually is a good comparison, particularly later in his career, when he, too, was taking years and years to make a single film. Malick has made only five since his big-screen debut, with 1973’s Badlands
. The second one, 1978’s Days of Heaven
, remains his most mainstream work; two full decades would pass before the next one, 1998’s The Thin Red Line
. Since then, he also unleashed 2005’s The New World
.Malick shares Kubrick’s desire to make every frame so gorgeous that it could be extracted, mounted and hung in a museum; in fairness, yes, the cinematography and composition are that gorgeous, often that powerful. But if I want to look at paintings, I visit a museum; motion pictures are so named because, well, they’re supposed to move.
