So I guess that's as good a place to start as any. If you haven't seen this film, this post will not make much sense. If you have, it probably still won't make much sense. As I try to put together words about something that my friend compared to poetry in film form.
So...wash your feet. As the mother does. Cleansing that upon which we walk. Mankind's original form of travel. And almost all creatures share that mode. What am I getting at here? I don't know either. Just ride with me. Or walk. But wash your feet. Rinse them off with a hose. Feet tell us where we've been. OK now I'm getting somewhere with this. Cleanse your past by washing the dirt off your feet. Not something we can really do. They will get dirty again. But we won't track in the mud, we will maintain a clean house which will betray our dirty past, be it from ancient times or from minutes ago when our feet were filthy.
But that's not enough, is it? To keep the house clean? We must keep the outsides of our houses clean. The yard. Keep that grass uniform and make sure it grows under the tree, no matter how much it refuses to do so, because it is not in the grass' nature to grow under that tree. Control nature, control the trees as well. Hey, trees! That's from the movie title! We're getting somewhere now!
You take it from here. I want an essay about this. Explain to me how we control the tree of life.
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Family life. Follow what I say, not what I've done. Obey your father. Even though your father repeatedly explains how that's no way to get ahead in life, that you must betray people and be bad in order to succeed. So you get conflicting messages. That's how you grow up. Being pulled in different directions. To achieve that conflicting goal. Follow your dreams, don't be like your daddy who could have been a professional musician. But be mean to get ahead in the corporate world. Big buildings. Sean Penn.
Sean Penn?
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When is the last time a film has been made with this amount of ambition, to be such a broad statement, that has actually succeeded in its statement? I had high hopes for The Fountain, but it seemed to shy away from what it could have been. Southland Tales turned into an epic joke of a film. The Tree of Life reaffirmed in me the power of cinema, the capabilities it has beyond telling a story or simply bringing up deep seated emotions (not exactly simple, but this concept has been achieved beautifully many times before). To be this all encompassing, to be as worthy of "the big screen," to be such a reason for "the big screen" to even exist...
...not that I won't fight tooth & nail for the cinema, for all great movies to be seen on the big screen ON FILM in a darkened theater...
...but to be as grand as the screen it should be seen on, to be a cinematic EVENT...is rarely achieved.
This is intimidating as an aspiring filmmaker. While I would be content to making small character pictures that speak to the simple truths of life, a film like this reminds me of the full scope of what it can be.
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Even this write up is way too short for what this movie deserves. But it's all I can say right now. It's too daunting to step up and try to say everything that CAN be said about it. So let's leave this discussion open.
