Life, But Not as we Know it
Terrence Malick's "The Tree of Life" is an artsy, impressionistic story of Jack, the eldest son of a family who grew up during the 1950s. As an adult he has become disillusioned with everything and is seeking answers which is not easy due to his conflicted relationship with his mother and father.
Well the kitchen was quite nice, that shot of a polished old plane was pretty, the vertical shots of sky scrapers looked powerful and that shot of a sunset was pleasant. In truth I could probably fill out a review just listing off each nice piece of cinematography because there is a lot of beautiful cinematography in "The Tree of Life" as well as some CGI dinosaurs. Unfortunately that is all I could do because I found "The Tree of Life" pretentious nonsense with all the sorts of things which some people like and go wild about in the name of art but leave me thinking that isn't art whilst also thinking I doubt I will ever get a movie like this.
So with that in mind there are some really beautiful images used in "The Tree of Life", the blood tinted images of clouds to those which seem to be roaring with fire is quite powerful even if the wailing soundtrack is just annoying. There is also Jessica Chastain who looks beautiful during those scenes set in the 50s and conveys heartbreak nicely but when she delivers the narration over so much imagery her voice doesn't grip you.
What this all boils down to in what is an embarrassingly short review of "The Tree Life" is that it did next to nothing for me and found it a waste of time. Visually there is no doubt it is striking but from what is said and what it attempts to convey it was not for me and just came across as being pretentious although an impressive work even if I didn't get it.
