The Tree of Life

I'm not sure what to say about this movie exactly. I didn't like it, but I was left, at the end, with the strong impression that I had just seen an important and innovative work of art, and I sort of wanted to see it again. It didn't feel like a movie, though.

The Tree of Life doesn't have very many words in it. It presents what story it does contain through impressions. This brings the viewer back to childhood (or at least how childhood feels when you're an adult remembering childhood), where you take things in as if you're in a dream or under water. The impressions are very well done, capturing even the way that a child might remember something that never happened, such as the mother jumping on the bed.

There is no consistent, orderly, chronological narrative. The film jumps in and out of different times, showing the characters at different ages. In addition, there's a lengthy creation story, complete with computer-generated dinosaurs. And then there's heaven, when characters at different ages are reunited. That part blew my mind a little--can you get to that heaven at two different ages simultaneously?

A couple of things to note: parts of The Tree of Life were filmed in Waco, Texas; the mother in the film wears loads of green dresses; the film, true to its title, focuses many shots of a live oak--I love live oaks, even the name is wonderful, perhaps especially when pronounced with a southern accent.

What I didn't like about the film was it's meditative quality--the whole film was filled with voice over prayers to God from the mother and from the little boy. The prayers were psalm-like in their heart-felt pleading. Somehow, though, I thought this all came out as fairly creepy. I think it was the combination of prayers with film footage of the sublime and the grand--of waterfalls and deserts and creation. It reminded me of the juxtaposition presented on the front of Our Daily Bread--the devotional booklet is filled with nice anecdotes from everyday life, but the front always has some grand, dramatic picture. It's as if the best illustration of God is in the sublime, which just doesn't fit very well together with our quiet lives in places like Waco, Texas.

The film reminded me a lot of Augustine's Confessions: it was an adult tracing out for others God's work in his life from his childhood. It shows his experience as a child with sin and death and deformity and redemption (although redemption is implied more than explained).


(picture, picture, picture, picture)