Saturday afternoon at the movies can change your mind… if you see Terence Malick’s new film, « The Tree of Life. »
It’s just things as they are, start to finish, or finish to start, the « beginning » is at the « end, » and nothing is what it seems to be in this film and yet it is all exactly, simply what it is.
Lavishly beautiful, sublimely stunning, a whisper, a glimpse, a breath, a breeze, a raindrop, shadows and light, brilliance and a flicker on the surface of the planet, clouds dashing, a leaf alone, birds in flight, the universe and a grain of sand. Transcendent and of the earth. All is present, all is gone, birth, death, childhood, parenthood, past, present, beyond and here.
I heard there were wild applause as well as fierce boos from the crowd when it was projected at Cannes. Of course. The tree of life: All is present, all is gone.