Search found 1 match: Jessica Chastain

Searched query: jessica chastain

by AFlickering
Tue Jan 08, 2013 12:12 am
Forum: Full Reviews
Topic: the tree of life
Replies: 1
Views: 1841

the tree of life

i had these tingles down my spine, accompanied by the dawning realisation that i may be bearing witness to the film time will deem the greatest of the 21st century. this is the one that's pulled it all together for me, a full flourishing of everything that took root in sissy spacek's innocuous, trance-like recollections of her "lover"'s killing spree near 40 years ago in badlands; i'm certain it'll still be growing when i'm long dead and gone.

back then, malick externalised dissociated adolescence as a hallucinatory spell of hazy sensations, a timeless fairytale capturing the tension between rebellion and conformity at the heart of human existence. days of heaven, its successor and rivalling mccabe and mrs miller as the most gorgeous film ever made in the US, took this technique a stage further, stripping the plot of onscreen drama or explicatory dialogue in favour of impressionistic cinematography and, yes, an impressionistic narration by a young girl who wanders on the periphery of the generic storyline, transforming it into something lyrical and archetypal. the whole thing plays out like a child's memory, lingering uncomprehendingly on hauntingly vivid natural details which allude to her companions' desires, fears and dreams--nature always mirroring nature, light and dark woven together as one.

in a rare interview upon completion of days of heaven, malick stated his aim: "enable small changes of heart, changes that mean the same thing: to live better and to love more... ...what else is there to ask for?" implicitly, this signalled his attention to transcend cynicism, recapture a time of innocence where such a philosophy wouldn't be deemed trite and naive, but understood as the key to enjoying existence. immediately he began working on a third film entitled Q, only to shelve it until it re-emerged as the tree of life decades later. it may be that his twenty year sabbatical was the direct result of failing to climb this particular mountain, and i suspect now that the thin red line and the new world stand as blueprints, stepping stones, for what he would ultimately achieve here. that's not to dismiss those achievements as anything less than masterful in their own right, of course; to say they don't quite possess the same all-encompassing scope is to attach a criticism from which arguably no other film in the history of cinema is excluded. but there's no doubting, this is his magnum opus.

i'm sorry to say i don't remember the new world too well, but i remember the thin red line, my introduction to arthouse cinema and very much a teenage favourite in my days of black metal zealotry and an accompanying desire to transcend the worldview of an apathetic society founded on fear of nature. the central difference with his early material is that we're no longer inhabiting the perceptions of one person; instead, semi-interchangeable soldiers are vessels for ruminations on faith and doubt, wonder and fear, life and death, coming to understand each as woven into the other. not a surprise to find malick spent years as a student translating heidegger; i can imagine that were heidegger alive today, he'd study malick with similar reverence. looking back, it's thrilling to realise that the thin red line is trying to open out a clearing wherein an epiphany can occur, an awakening of existential clarity that kit and holly, billy and abby and linda too, are searching for in the wilderness without ever realising it. a place for us to resolve that endless conflict between who we are and who we are pressured to be by fathers both literal and metaphorical, allowing us to re-harmonise with our surroundings, discover the divine in the strange, the ugly and the frightening; ultimately, in ourselves.

and so we arrive at the tree of life, and please believe me when i say it's taken an incredible journey for me to arrive at this place, here and now, when i'm able to let this film wrap itself around my heart. a child prodigy-turned-desensitised, demotivated cynic who spends far more time staring at a screen in the early hours than facing the world, i've spent many years working through my bitterness and resentment toward idealists and humanists and pious folk i once deemed dangerously naive, coming to understand that the roots of that disdain lay in envy, no more and no less. for me, growing up has been a series of humbling experiences, culminating in a realisation that there are people half my IQ who are smarter than me in every way that matters. because they're happier than me. i can no longer kid myself into judging people by any other scale, or at least my heart's not in it when i try.

and now this film, this fucking ludicrous film that wanders away from its characters to dabble in, oh, only the history of everything, lava and galaxies and dinosaurs and all the shit in between; this film has given me one of the strongest glimpses (and certainly the strongest cinematic glimpse) i've ever had into that psyche from which i'm unfortunately so far removed. the frame of mind where everything, and by everything i mean the totality of existence, this endless dance of parents and children, not just the joy and the suffering but the banalities and routines as well--all of it is dizzily, giddily, intoxicatingly fucking beautiful. and it kind of blindsided me, honestly, because it's the kind of film that i know just can't usually touch me, until suddenly, it was making me cry.

i can't stop thinking about jessica chastain floating in the air, or "sweet boy", or that ecstatic apocalyptic epilogue which, i think, will make a rewatch of melancholia, a film which premiered alongside the tree of life at cannes 2011, hurt ten times as bad. i hope that von trier, a man in whom i've always sensed a kindred spirit, will one day count this among his favourite films, too. i've never understood better what it is to be a believer, not specifically in the christian sense but in feeling pure, unwavering love and awe for the world and the people in it, no matter what happens. and though i couldn't possibly say right now whether it's changed me for the better, i do know that i can't wait to experience it all over again.