The Tree of Life (2011)

3/5

ok, i liked it. but many won't. in fact, i'm certain that a lot of people will f-cking hate it and would prefer to spend the night cheese grating their genitals or having people fart in their mouths rather than watch this film. but others will think it's the most brilliant sophisticated thing since mini-gherkins on toothpicks.

i thought moments were great, but not the whole complete piece (yes, i just called it a piece). the thing is, is that, for me, it comes SO close to being pretentious, but juuuust wasn't - because visually it was awesome, and the family dynamic was just superb. so, yeah. it's a 3. i'll never watch it again, nor will i buy it, but i'm giving it a slightly hostile 3. 

but i can totally understand the love-hate reaction people are having to this film - in fact, it scored the coveted Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival this year, despite people booing it at the screening. yeah, booing and applause? that pretty much sums up the audience with whom i saw it with the other night... some people were snickering throughout the film. there were other people shh'ing them. a number of people walked out not even halfway in. but others clapped at the end, and stayed to the end of the credits. i, myself, did not snicker. however... 

ok, some long parts of the film were dead silent. with no sound. no music. just images. i think those were moments that the director wanted his audience to really and completely visually absorb. zero distraction. (note that it was during these long quiet moments that people were snickering and being hushed.)

ok, i had popcorn. but it seemed like no one else was f-cking eating popcorn (it's not really a popcorn movie, although all movies for me are popcorn movies). but as i was eating my popcorn, i could really hear my crunching. f-ck! a lot of the dialogue is voice over that is really quietly whispered. like one word whispers! so i missed a lot of words with my crunching. f-ck! then i started to suck on the kernals to keep things quiet, but who wants to suck on popcorn? so i started crunching again (but as quietly and slowly as i could). 

for f-cks sake...  

i felt like my friend pammy and i were being judged. like we were the idiots eating popcorn when we should have been REALLY WATCHING. plus we had Skittles! do you know how awkward it is trying to grab handfulls of Skittles out of the bag QUIETLY?

but i digress.

the movie tells the story of a Texas family living in the 1950s. Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain play the parents of three boys. the film follows the life of one of the boys (played as an adult by Sean Penn) who reflects upon his childhood, growing up, the death of one of his brothers, and the complicated relationship he had with his abusive, intimidating father.

the film is very experimental. VERY. loooong scenes that seemed to be taken directly from the Discovery Network, like of sharks swimming, of outer space, desert landscapes, underwater, beaches, fields of flowers,  erupting volcanoes, a beached Loch Ness Monster - seriously. [side note: actually, these seemingly (to me) random scenes kinda reminded me of the old stock footage that director Ed Wood would fill up his movies with. hehe. silly Ed Wood. Ed Wood would fill-in a walking-dead movie with a bunch of clips that he would try to make work in his own story line - who needs to film when you can use some sucker's stock footage FOR FREE? so he would include clips of like a buffalo giving birth, or of a kite, a cricket, then maybe a train, or of a tree being chopped down, a book on fire, a clown juggling... you get the idea.]

i gotta admit. the scenes in The Tree of Life were beautiful. great to see on a large screen. BUT the film is so non-linear that i missed the relevance or meaning of these "clips" to the overall core story of the family (which i LOVED). i thought the scenes with the family were wonderful. many shots looked like they could have been photographs. the family's home was beautiful - and the furniture was so gorgeous i wanted to stab myself. plus, the kid actors were amazing. the mother was also so quietly perfect. many moments where we see the family interacting, the boys playing, Brad Pitt being scary, the kids' reaction, was gripping (f-ck, every time Brad Pitt placed his hand on one of his son's shoulder/neck while walking made me hold my breath). Brad Pitt was amazing, as always, but i hated him playing the piano. his little pursed lips while he played with his eyes closed was so funny to me. silly, actually. but his acting is just so awesome, i can ignore the silly cat's-ass mouth. and then there's Sean Penn. i dunno. whatever. he was neither here nor there for me... actually, it sorta seemed in the movie like he had early-onset of Alzheimer's - he's just wandering around, not talking, hair not combed, looking confused. 

*snort*

ok, so this is not the type of movie i would recommend to a group of dudes who work on a road crew. i wouldn't even recommend it to women who think they're gonna get the hot Brad Pitt à la (insert any Brad Pitt movie character, excluding the deformed version of him in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button). i will tell artsy-fartsy people to watch it - or anyone who is in love with cinema, period. i also imagine many stoners will be renting this film to watch in their living room. they'll enjoy it.

but i'd like to sum up this movie with pammy's brilliant recap, expressed at the end of the film, with which i completely agree:

"i could've done without the dinosaurs."

yeah. there were scenes of dinosaurs running around.

art!