Festival de Cannes 72 Countdown: The Tree of Life, 2011

We excitedly countdown to the 72nd Festival de Cannes with 72 different prize winning films.

The Tree of Life, 2011

Palme d’Or – Terrence Malick

Cinemaphiles everywhere rejoiced in unison with Criteron’s release of Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life, which, according to its president Peter Becker, was as much as an extensive challenge as watching the movie itself.

Conversations between Becker and Fox Searchlight, which distributed the film theatrically, began as far back as Cannes 2011 about doing a special Criterion home-video release….That meant tracking down palettes of original negatives in order to pull the scenes Malick wanted, scanning everything in 4K, grading the footage with cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki to match the original film, and creating a full sound mix for the additional material. Malick himself dedicated the better part of a year to the project.

The praise for the reclusive director’s existential family drama speaks for itself. The late Roger Ebert, in his review, compared it to 2001 in terms of sheer boldness of the director’s vision. Sight & Sound voted it he best film of 2011. And the BBC ranked the film no.7 in a list of the 100 Greatest Films of the 21st Century, polled by film critics across the world.

It doesn’t come as a surprise that film aficionados practically drooled over the fact that this restoration effort includes 50 minutes of new footage, and now runs at 3 hours and 8 minutes. And I’m surprised even less that it’s being hailed as an even better version, a more deeper cinematic experience. Before I go any further, let me say the following: this isn’t a review of the Criterion version of the film, but rather, the original cut that Malick put out in theaters.

Many film fans are excited for this release, and I’m glad for them. For me? I would rather sit through Gotti, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, and the latest unfunny Kevin Hart vehicle before I endure a three-plus hour director’s cut of a Terrence Malick film.

Let me be frank here: I think The Tree of Life is self-indulgent nonsense. It is, for me, one of the most insufferable and unbearable movie experiences of my life.

I know what you’re thinking: ‘How could you say that about a heralded masterpiece? Your words border on blasphemy!’

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Perhaps it is. I understand I am on a tiny spit of land, similar to the one which trapped Capt. Jack Sparrow in the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie, and that’s perfectly okay. The great thing about a social media community of fellow film aficionados is that we all don’t share the same hive mind on film; there are works we love while others we don’t, and in these divisions, we engage in passionate debate about the merits of a particular piece of work, and I hope that, with this piece, that I can present a different perspective on this feature.

You’re thinking: ‘Well, maybe you just didn’t understand it; this movie requires multiple viewings to really understand Malick’s genius!’

I’ve sat through this movie at least four times. And each time, I’ve felt more frustrated and borderline angry at it’s elusiveness, and how it didn’t need to be in segments. Let’s take how we meet the film focuses on Jack the elder, portrayed by Sean Penn, as an example. We see him going about his life as an architect, musing about how it’s all gone to the dogs, unsatisfied by the path he has chosen for himself. The shot of him walking through a barren desert to symbolize his sense of disenchantment is a nice touch, but we’re just told that he’s lost and adrift.

Why doesn’t Malick show us, through his work life – the ins and outs of his profession, the atmosphere of being confined to office rules and protocols, his feelings of disenfranchisement? This was a fine opportunity for Malick to cement the character’s existential crisis by showing us just how unfulfilling this line of work is. And how it’s crushing him on the inside, but the audience only gets an outline of his conflict, rather than the big picture.

The director’s lack of expanding on the grown up version of Jack’s existential dilemma is ironic, because in the next segment. We’re taken on a journey into the cosmos, as Malick shows us the creation of the universe, and I really mast ask…why? What is the purpose of this sequence? Is the director trying to provide a contrast, and say that Jack’s issues are simply inconsequential to a divine being creating life as we know it, so suck it up?

Read More: Festival de Cannes 72 Countdown: Days of Heaven

More to the point, this scene, complete with an opera chorus, organ piano and actors speaking in hushed whispers like we’re being told sweet nothings into our ears, drives me mad because it’s unnecessary to the main body of the story. There’s simply little to no reason or rhyme for this part to be in this movie. And it just feels like Malick is indulging his artistic appetites for showing off vivid imagery. It’s art for art’s sake.

Perhaps what drives me crazy about The Tree of Life is how there is a good film, with introspective ideas and themes about the human condition in this exercise in artistic masturbation. Malick has Jessica Chastain’s Mrs. O’Brien teach her sons that there are two ways to go through life – the way of nature, or the way of grace. The director shoots Chastain as the free-spirited, angelic version of this concept; always soaking in the beauty of her surroundings, and, hopefully, teach her boys to live life through this prism.

By contrast, Mr. O’Brien (Brad Pitt) represents the way of nature. He wants to instill in his sons, but mostly through young Jack, that it takes ruthlessness and sheer will to get ahead in life. The patriarch once had dreams of playing in a jazz band, but instead chose work in a power plant. Lamenting of what could have been and constantly filing patents for his inventions in order to get ahead.

Unlike the Messes, Pitt’s character is strict, authoritarian in nature and quickly loses his shit. Here, the two schools of philosophy as born out by the mother and father, begin to eat away at the young Jack. As the audience begins to piece together how the elder Jack’s past as a youth shaped him into what we see him at the beginning of the film.