FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Terrence Malick - The Tree Of Life 

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Terrence Malick's The Tree Of Life is a film of tremendous ambition and deep humanity. Nothing less than the image of all existence through the primacy of a manageable number of human lives: the O'Brien family. There is only one film I can think of that has a similar claim and that is 2001 - but that one lacks the humanity of Malick's film. Malick is the last survivor of the New Hollywood generation who can still be credited with such a masterpiece over and over again! I can hardly remember the last time a film touched me so much and had so much to do with my own life. It almost seems as if the men in The Tree Of Life are myself. If I had the talent of Malick and had to make an autobiographical film, it would probably look like this. We experience childhood in a small town where life just flows. There's a father preaching discipline and a mother advocating forgiveness. We are on an island of idleness and only in this environment do questions about the meaning of life arise (because it takes time). The three boys of the O'Brien family are tanned by the sun and slightly scratched from playing. The fleeting impressions they get from the adults' secrets disturb them and increase their desire to grow up as fast as possible themselves. I myself grew up in the suburbs of West Berlin, where the mothers looked out of the kitchen window at the children and at about six everyone had to go in for dinner. The doors of the houses were open and we felt protected - I think from the innocence that such an environment radiates. Malick received the congenial support of his production designer Jack Fisk, who created the pictures of this idyllic small town (it must be in the Midwest). Like in his last films Malick manages without an obvious plot. He shows how the summer days follow each other and has his characters monologue to this. In fact, it's not so much the conversations between the characters as the soliloquies that make up The Tree Of Life. We watch everyday life. Inspired probably by Malick's own memories from his hometown in Texas, the events are limited by 1). space and time and 2) spirituality. Malick presents breathtaking images of the creation and expansion of the universe, first life and evolution. He ends up in the here and now - with all of us. Through the Big Bang we were created and today we are - you and me. But what comes after that? At the beginning the words "Nature" and "Grace" are whispered. We experience how nature gives life and takes it away again. One of the O'Brien brothers dies. We might as well watch the time: Young Jack O'Brien (Hunter McCracken) finally becomes a middle-aged man (Sean Penn). And then? I think the film promises an afterlife, an afterlife. In a lonely landscape people greet each other solemnly. I believe that there is harmony and absolute understanding. Sometimes you could read that Mr. O'Brien (Brad Pitt with a short haircut) is a character who is seen too one-sidedly as a kind of bulldog tax. He seems to be interested only in discipline. For me he just does what he thinks is right. Mrs. O'Brien (Jessica Chastain, who seems so ethereal) is more understanding and kind. Sure, we see a family of the 50's and it is not unusual for a child to get hit at the dinner table. At least Mr. O'Brien apologizes to his son Jack: "I was a little hard on you sometimes". He just replies, "It's your house." Jack defends his father against himself. That's how you grow up. In Malick's film, all this seems like a brief flash of life within the eternal realms of space and time.