The Tree of Life

It's finally here. Terrence Malick's long in the making, long in the hyping The Tree of Life has reached Prague. And here, just as everywhere else it has screened so far, this singularly ambitious piece of cinema is bound to divide filmgoers into two camps: the lovers and the haters. Oh, and in this case, a third: the fence-straddlers.

The polarizing reception that greeted The Tree of Life at the Cannes Film Festival and has done so since is most likely down to the simple fact that some people need a narrative to grasp, and others don't. Although Malick's film is loosely rooted by middle-aged architect Jack's (Sean Penn) reminisces of his childhood in 1950s Texas, this is not your standard rite-of-passage movie.

The Tree of Life is comprised of shards of Jack's (often unrelated) memories: those of a doting mother (Jessica Chastain in a stunning breakthrough performance), now-dead brother (Laramie Eppler) and his near-abusive but loving father (Brad Pitt). The film also goes back to the dawn of creation, and poses life's big questions to a God who might not be listening. Such ambition will either strike a sincere chord or rub you the wrong way.

To begin with the positives, The Tree of Life has some unequivocally impressive assets. Take for instance, the cinematography. One can only marvel at the landscapes Malick paints as he transports us eons into the past to sprawling kaleidoscopic galaxies, the raw volcanic beginnings of Earth and tempestuous waves quenching streams of golden lava. These images become all the more astounding when you realize many were conceived using such everyday items like paint, dyes and milk (assumedly, the dinosaurs that appear later were created using another technique).

Beautiful too are the whirling, lens-flared shots of Jack's childhood home. In these, Malick captures a dreamlike consciousness that stop shorts of rubbing Vaseline around the edges of the camera lens and stroking a harp. Here is a director who has no difficulty translating his own visions onto the screen.

The copious classical music wrapping itself around all this eye candy (including Smetana's Vltava, Henryk Górecki's mystical Symphony No. 3 and Bach's demonic Toccata and Fugue in D Minor) compounds the deliciousness of Malick's cinematography. You could watch this stuff for hours, preferably in 3-D at IMAX with the surround-sound cranked up.

But, with all the aestheticism and existentialism, it's easy to forget that swaddled somewhere in the film's depths is the seed of a simple story.

Jack's relationship with his father and the boy's growing dislike for him to the point he prays for God to kill him is the truly engaging aspect of The Tree of Life. It's heartwarming to watch the young Jack - played to perfection by Hunter McCracken - change from deferential milksop to empowered young hooligan. That's why the most joyous moment in the film comes, not with a cosmic conception, but when Jack's father goes away for a business trip: The ensuing chaos of deliberate rule-breaking is utterly delightful.

Pitt himself is mesmerizing. His father-figure lords over the rest of the family but is in truth the weakest of them all. He's like a tetchy gangster who could at any second come down on you like a wrecking ball. Still, he doesn't repent fully until one of his own sons is dead; it is a life of hypocrisy and ambiguity - one that could do with a lot more screen time and exploration.

In fact, in all of The Tree of Life's superbly portrayed characters, there is scope for further exploration. For many filmgoers, that their lives are touched upon so sporadically and so fleetingly will be cause for frustration.

For the poets, aesthetes and philosophers among us, The Tree of Life may well proffer itself as an undisputed masterpiece - a foray into memories both painful and cherished, and into posing life's big questions - all carried off with some seriously stunning imagery. For those who prefer to focus on character development, narrative and accessibility, The Tree of Life will at times feel like swimming an ocean of pretension, with only the odd bit of solid drama floating by.

Perhaps you should decide what kind of a person you are before going to see it.

Will Noble can be reached at
wnoble@praguepost.com