Films About Trees

Two films about Trees, or at least that have the word Tree in the title.

There seems to be a very sharp divide on Terrence Malick's latest film, The Tree of Life. According to a poll in The Guardian, 57% thought is was a "Profound Masterpiece", while the other 43% thought is was "Pretentious nonsense". Malick directed one of my all time favorite films, Days of Heaven, so I was really hoping to like this film. (See my 5/14/11 post)

The Tree of Life tries to take on the meaning of life. I would not say that is pretentious nonsense. One the other hand, it may be just plain pretentious to think you can do that in film—even a long film.

Days of Heaven was not considered a success when it was released. It was criticized, because the narrative is a bit murky, and there are many sequences in the film that are visually stunning, but have little to do with advancing the plot. i.e. wheat fields. In that film, which has a relatively simple plot line, I thought all that helped to set the tone of the film.

The Tree of Life is similar in a lot of ways. But when you have a plot that is not presented chronologically, and then you include long sequences of the galaxies evolving, and then some more sequences of dinosaurs, to me it just becomes a jumbled mess. The core of the story, which involves a family with three young boys growing up in the fifties, is very well acted. It was just a little too disjointed for me to appreciate.

The father and mother in film are play by Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain, and I can't criticize their performances. In general though, when two people are married in a film, even if they no longer love, or even like, each other, I would like to see some evidence that at one time they had a reason to be together. I find it tiresome to watch a couple on film, and the whole time to be thinking "what possible reason could these two people have ever had for being together". I don't see how you can ever understand what went wrong with a relationship, unless you have some idea why it started in the first place.

That being said, you may be one of the 53% who would think this is a masterpiece, so don't let me stop you from seeing it.



The Tree, a film from Australia, is the second film. This film starts out with a generally happy family in semi-rural Australia, but things turn bad when the father has a heart attack, and smashes the truck he is driving into a massive tree growing in front of their house. He dies, and the family is left bereft. The middle daughter comes to believe that her father's spirit has been transferred into the tree. In due course, the massive roots of the tree begin to create problems, for both the family, and their neighbors. This then leads to a conflict over whether or not the tree should be cut down.

Unlike the sweeping scope of The Tree of Life, this film is tightly focused on the family involved, and their personal attempts to deal with a traumatic situation. Much like The Tree of Life, The Tree uses landscape to enhance the tone of the film, but in this case that use is integrated into the narrative of the film, and not added in as interruptions to the narrative.

The Tree has a rather languid pace, which is appropriate for a film focused on dealing with loss. It does, however, have a very dramatic ending, so that when the film is over you do feel like something has happened.

All this to say, I liked The Tree better than The Tree of Life.



As I final note, I would add that both films contain strong performances from very young actors, and are probably worth seeing just for that.