The Tree of Life (2011)
Certified: 12
Duration: 139 minutes
Directed by: Terrence Malick
Starring: Brad Pitt, Jessica Chastain, Sean Penn, Hunter McCracken, Laramie Eppler, Tye Sheridan
KRS release

Tree of Life is set in suburban in the 1960s. The focus is on the O’Brien family made up of Mr O’Brien (Brad Pitt), Mrs O’Brien (Jessica Chastain), the eldest son Jack (Hunter McCracken), and the younger brothers R.L. (Laramie Eppler) and Steve (Tye Sheridan). The film is about the different notions surrounding the way the couple believes their children should be brought up.

While she is of the mindset that children should be provided with a caring and accepting attitude, it is Mr O’Brien’s much stricter and harsher stand to parenting – which was the norm in the era – that dominates the family. This brings about rebellion in Jack, especially as the other siblings accept their dad’s discipline. Fear brings about rebellion, bad behaviour and bullying on his youngest brother. The story runs in parallel to Jack (Sean Penn) an unhappy adult, empty inside, seemingly unaffected by the death of one of his brothers. The film is a study and trekking of a family and how it progressed throughout the years and the effects that it had on its members.

The above plot may sound like a conventional story. However, there is nothing linear or conventional about Terrence Malick’s cinematic offering. Visually wild and splendid, the film is sometimes incomprehensible and a mishmash of New Age ramblings. It has an almost hypnotic effect on its audience, almost as if the director were weaving an enchantment. Incorporating both sci-fi and surreal elements, towards the end I was still at a loss as to what The Tree of Life was about. It is almost the director’s own visualisation of meditation on life in general and man’s place in the general scheme of things.

The Tree of Life will leave its audiences polarised either in favour or against. All those seeing Brad Pitt and Sean Penn’s name on the billboard believing that they will be in for an Academy Award kind of movie, will leave disappointed. I applaud and admire the originality that the film displays, its insights and its loose structure almost as if it were a flow of a river or stream.

The film looks at the male and female characters that dominate the family in a never-ending tug of war. Brad Pitt is asked to look wide-eyed, insightful and troubled as he sees male authority being eroded.

While he nominally holds a position of leadership, it is the calming and quiet presence of his wife that has the family’s control. The actors in this film are not really being asked to act, but rather to look into the each other’s eyes, at the great nothing and into the essence of what may have made this world. The film itself seems to look at a higher being, at a greater purpose in life and the way man deals with the divine.

At times, the film simply veers into flights of fantasy. Under the seasoned cinematography of Emmanuel Lubetzki, it is given a trance dream-like quality that could only compare to Stanley Kubrick from the time of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

The film will bring forth various interpretations as it is almost an affirmation of faith and of inner workings of the human soul and the turmoil within. This is as much a spiritual, as it is a cerebral journey.

The Tree of Life left Sean Penn feeling confused. I can understand that completely. I need a second viewing as at the moment I am still wondering whether this is just a collection of pretty images and a director’s ramblings or a well thought-out study of man’s attempted relationship with God.