What was your reaction to viewing “The Tree of Life”? Explain why you
have the reaction and, using Roger Ebert’s review as a guide, comment on
something he has said in your reaction.
Please bring your copy to class, word processed.
Please bring your copy to class, word processed.
The movie “The Tree of Life” has been on my list on IMDB.com since 2011, when it won The Palme d'Or at the Cannes. I am glad to watched it on a big screen in the class. In the movie director Terrrence Malick has asked many important (vital) questions and answered on them. He showed us his version of the Big Bang theory and evolution. He showed us how love and faith can help to survive, when it seems impossible and the only will is to die. And many others. Visually I liked his version of God — something iridescent like a flame. Also Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain were very convincing in their acting. Mr. O’Brien was a different person when he played the organ — his facial expression reminded me the real musicians. Mr. Ebert has found a great word for Mrs. O’Brien – “the ethereal.” Her voice is Mr. Ebert said that Terrrence Malick “creates the O’Brien Parents and their three boys without an obvious plot.” And it is true, but talent of the director lies in the fact that the viewers it does not bother at all. All in all, after watching the movie I got more questions than answers. Maybe it was my mood, but I got a feeling that all heroes were deeply unhappy.
ReplyDelete“Malick's fierce evocation of human feeling” is how Roger Ebert puts it, and I cannot agree more. Terrence Malick captures my heart with his images and whispered narration and, like Ebert, “‘The Tree of Life’ reflect[s] a time and place I lived in.” So well that I immediately identified with the posse of boys playing together in the neighbourhood. I read earlier that the children were left much to their own devices and Malick filmed everything. By doing so, he created a natural portrait of a childhood lost forever to our increasingly technological world. That new world is well represented in the glass-fronted and sterile towers inhabited by Sean Penn’s character; it is a cold and soulless place that makes me weep at what we have done to our world. I must also say that I advise anyone watching the film to use the subtitles. When I saw it for the first time on a big screen, much of that dialogue was lost to me. It is worth listening. It is worth considering life, deeply. My “human feeling” is plumbed to its ultimate depths when I watch “The Tree of Life.” I will definitely watch it again.
ReplyDeleteIf I become a father, I would like to be like him, Mr. O’Brien. His behaviour is appreciable, and no one knows about this cruel life. I think about what I believe in is that, I will leave earlier than my children and be happy they know how to take care of themselves. As Ebert commented, “Some reviews have said, Mr. O’Brien is too strict as a disciplinarian. I don’t think so.” Yes, and I agree to Ebert’s answer. I love its music, the words and the colourful scenes. it inspired and remembered me some words of Rumi, “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a filed. I will meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to take about. Ideas, language, even the phrase each other doesn’t make any sense.” The movie is not about, what is going to happen next but what you feel next.
ReplyDelete