Tree Of Life

I remember the time when I first watched the film “Koyaanisqatsi” some months back. The stream of footages and ambient structure of sounds culminated the roots of evolution and human psyche in a most complacent way. While watching those splendors, one gets the feeling of a force prying over society. The structure of civilization, and the hustle of human dough, undergoes fragility through the ages.

The Tree of Life lights that psyche and bringing of the O’Brien family in an impressionistic way. It discusses life in broadest range, categorizing effortlessly into montage of sequences which play out like a symphony. I’d be posed a stooge if I go on describing what I felt in those verses. The movie follows the life and turmoil of the eldest son Jack (Hunter McCracken), from the O’Brien family, through whose eyes we glimpse into the fabrics of human life. While questioning the death of one of O’Brien’s sons, Science traces back to the inception of life, finding its way back to Jack.

Terrence Malick adopts elegant and fluid camera movements, providing an esoteric view on the O’Brien family. Sound in the film is stark and intact, heartbreakingly supplementing the terrific vision of Malick’s work. He has created an environment of raw emotions against abstracts in their full glory. I was floating merrily in the flux experience the visuals put me in. The Tree Of Life begins more like an offering than a movie. It certainly requires calm and attention, as it is not meant to be recollected. The viewer needs to surrender certain tools of presumptions, and simply waft in the soufflé sensory this photoplay bestows.

Mr. O Brien (Brad Pitt) portrays an unnerving father, who rigidly incorporates values in the upbringing of his three sons. Brad Pitt is excellent throughout, reflecting “call me sir” fumes in his persona. On the other side, the luminous Mrs.O Brien (Jessica Chastain) is angelic in true sense, and counters the temper Mr. O Brien holds. The relationship is spiritually invigorating and questions the deepest mysteries that are instrument in finding tranquility.They seem to represent the Yin and Yang energies, complementing each other in a 

defined way. The heart of the film beats in the tension between the eldest son Jack (Hunter McCracken), and his abusive father. Sean Penn plays as a grown man Jack, eroded mentally, and ruminating on his past.The Tree Of Life could be viewed as the memory of Jack O Brien unfurling through layers of emotions, just to find peace in that heap.

The film is downrightly beautiful and confusing, ending up in frustration. It has no storyline, but creeps up tension, death, and eternal bond of love in a juxtaposing affair. The scope of the film is magnificently ambitious, and universal in all aspects. If only the ending had been dauntingly accessible, and objectively straight, the film might have connected a larger group of people. Nonetheless, it is a rare tale of lost human souls, forever battling through life and death, in this poetic essay of existence.

  

4/5