Terrence Malick's new film "The Tree of Life" is set to be released on Blu-ray tomorrow (October 11, 2011). Terrence Malik is probably best known for the Oscar nominated, The Thin Red Line. His seemingly stream of consciousness film set in World War II. I sat back and watched it some months ago after realizing I'd never seen the whole thing from start to finish.
The majority of the film is dominated by an "in your head" monologue from the characters as they try to come to grips with what they are seeing and experiencing in war. Not so much Saving Private Ryan action war film as it is a philosophical exploration of man and humanity in general. The story seemed very non-linear and I realized at one point that the purpose of the film is a vehicle to deliver the message in the monologue while still maintaining a stunning visual appeal.
I'm expecting that Tree of Life is no different.
Meredith had the pleasure of working a few days on the film during the filming in Austin and around Texas. She could see that he had a real vision for what the film should be and that the physical medium of film and the reality of actors and locations were somewhat holding him back. Things often seemed sporadic and not connected during the filming. Something that is not uncommon when shooting a film as scenes are shot out of order to accommodate locations and actor's schedules. She admired his quest for perfection. She described to me one day of filming in which they had shot most of the day on a neighborhood street before Terrence moved the entire production one street over to shoot it again. It's no wonder that it took so many years for this film to be completed and released.
Terrence is a real visionary and creative genius. I'm expecting that The Tree of Life will be similar in style to The Thin Read Line and have real attention to detail and visuals, but deal more with the emotional struggles of family life and growing up. I'm sure that it will be anything but a literal and linear telling of a family story.
I'm looking forward to it.
Here is the trailer for The Tree of Life:
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