The Tree of Life

"Nants ingonyama bagithi baba.  Sithi uhhmm ingonyama:"  this is what was running through my mind five minutes after finishing The Tree of Life --- the opening lines to The Lion King's "Circle of Life" (yes, I had to look up the spelling).  Is that subliminal connection a good thing, or was my mind just trying in vain to make sense out of a notoriously difficult film?  Honestly, I don't know the significance of the song to this movie; I just found it amusing that that is where my mind wandered to as I pondered The Tree of Life.

This is not one of those movies that is going to reel you in by its narrative.  Essentially, the adult Jack (Sean Penn) is, in modern times, pondering his place in the world and the nature of man.  His mind flashes back to his childhood, raised by a strict and often angry father (Brad Pitt) and a saintly mother (Jessica Chastain), along with his two younger brothers.  The young Jack (Hunter McCracken) is very much like his father, while his brothers are very much like their mother.  And then this happens:

That, naturally, is followed by this:

...which, of course, leads to dinosaurs.

Dinosaurs and pretension, together at last

And then we resume Jack's stroll down memory lane.  No, you didn't miss anything.  Jack then winds up in a ridiculously remote location with doubtlessly metaphorical significance, we see some dead people, and now the movie is over.

Jack, busy ignoring that 127 Hours guy

If absolutely nothing else, The Tree of Life is designed to elicit a response from its viewers.  Confusion, hatred, love, whatever --- you're not left indifferent.  I saw it in the theater this weekend, and I was the only one of my group that did not absolutely loathe the film.  I could be wrong, but I believe my wife would have peed on Terrence Malick that night, given the chance.  The audience groaned whenever a fade to black became a fade-in, and this is one of the few movies I have seen in a long while where the audience --- filled with people paying to see a Best Picture nominee marathon, mind you --- wound up talking amongst themselves and giggling inappropriately.  I'm sure some people in that theater were absolutely blown away by Terrence Malick's most recent effort, but it was certainly not designed for the masses. 

The acting in The Tree of Life is universally solid, even when you're not sure what the hell is going on.  Brad Pitt handled a complex role as a do-it-yourself man that never did "it" good enough to be successful and happy; he is seen as an angry force of nature by Jack, but Pitt still makes this character sympathetic.  

Example: he doesn't eat this baby

Of course, to do this, Pitt sports the annoying under-bite he sometimes likes to use when playing Southern characters.  Jessica Chastain was also good as Jack's mother, but I didn't feel that her role was as compelling as Pitt's.  The only flaw she seemed to have was an inability to handle her husband's impotent rage, or at least protect her children from it; since the husband wasn't actually evil or physically abusive, though, that flaw isn't the defining point of her character.  Instead, she is the example of Heavenly Grace in this film.  There's nothing wrong with that, it just isn't too interesting from a character development standpoint.  Hunter McCracken did an impressive job as the troubled Young Jack.  He internalized a lot of struggles, and the way he lashed out at his parents felt true.  He's not a pretty kid, though.  Sean Penn just walked around looking mopey.  His character didn't have much time onscreen, but Penn still delivered a surprisingly bland performance.  I also liked Tye Sheridan as the sensitive, artsy brother, more because he was expressive than for any other real reason.


The acting was never going to be what made or broke The Tree of Life, though.  That depended entirely on writer/director Terrence Malick.  This is only the fifth film directed by Malick, although he has been directing since 1973, and it is based on a screenplay he began writing in the late 1970s.  Needless to say, Malick has put a lot of thought into this film.  Unfortunately for many viewers, none of those thoughts involved making this film easily comprehensible.  There is no denying that the cinematography in this film is absolutely stunning.  Even when you aren't sure what you are looking at, the images are impressive.

Above: nucleotides, maybe?

I also appreciated the complex acting Malick got from his cast in a film without a lot of revealing dialogue.  This is definitely a film that relies on the actions of the characters over their lines, and the performances were all good (with the exception of Penn), subtle and complex.


Having said all that, what the hell happened in this movie?  It jumps from a disjointed, nonlinear narrative about some kids growing up in the 1950s to an extended break (anywhere from 15-3000 minutes --- I didn't think to time it) with no acting, voice-over, or anything --- just shot after shot of outtakes from a planetarium laser show.  The images were gorgeous, but they didn't have any direct connection to the story.  And then dinosaurs happen, and I could hear audience members mentally checking out.

...aaaaand I'm done

I have no doubt that this sequence will become as famous/infamous as 2001's space baby.  So, if Kubrick pissed you off with that ending, you probably don't want to see a movie where that sort of sequence shows up in the middle without any explicit explanation.  

But let's ignore the cinematographic masturbation for a moment and focus on the rest of the film.  It's still incredibly obtuse.  There are many back-lit shots that the camera lingers on, but do not hold any explicit connection to the story at large.  And I hope you like trees, because The Tree of Life makes sure you notice them by holding still life shots for a loooong time, like Malick was waiting for the Ents to awaken or something.

Voice-over: "TREES, BITCHES!"

And I hope you like philosophical questions being whispered as voice-over, because that is something else this movie has in spades.  If I watch this again, I will have a hard time not calling out "Ricola" whenever Chastain or McCracken whispers sweet existential nothings in my ears.  There is also the confusing focus of the flashback scenes, where important things seem to happen (a neighbor's house burns down, somebody has a seizure, a brother dies at age 19, etc.), but are never really addressed again.  

If you hate The Tree of Life, I completely understand.  Personally, I can only take so much existential crap before my body starts rejecting it, and I can believe that this film has more than most people would like to handle.  However, I didn't quite hit my limit.  I thought this was a fantastically shot movie with interesting performances and a refreshing amount of directorial intent.  I didn't like it much, but I appreciate it for what it is.  It's hard to find a movie that so so obviously odd, that is striving so hard to tell a particular point of view instead of just going after emotions with broad strokes; The Tree of Life will probably end up like The Velvet Underground and Nico --- not many people will like it, but those that do will make their own films, or at least look for more challenging cinema than what Hollywood has to offer.  And that's a good thing for film as an art form and as a continuously evolving commercial product.  What kept me from liking the movie (believe it or not) was not the "history of life" interlude, but the core story.  I never connected to Jack; I found him repulsive as a child and completely uninteresting as an adult.  The issues he's dealing with are fairly universal, but I never felt emotionally invested in this philosophical lecture or in the characters involved.

Is Jack being shown affection or love?  I don't really care

Maybe I'm a little strange.  Well, I'm definitely strange, but it strikes me as odd that this, an obviously personal film that Malick put an impressive amount of time and thought into, would leave me almost indifferent.  Oh well.  Since it failed to entice me emotionally or philosophically and because the whole thing was pretty damn pretentious, I'm giving The Tree of Life

I will recommend this movie to anyone who is a big fan of 2001: A Space Odyssey or The Fountain.  Just don't make me watch it with you.


Now, if you have already seen the movie and are trying to figure out what it was about, here's my take:

Brian's story analysis of The Tree of Life

The movie boils down to the premise introduced by Jessica Chastain's character at the very beginning, the struggle between Grace and Nature; Grace (embodied by mommy) is kind and loving and wants everything and everybody to be nice and recognize the glory all around us, while Nature is competitive and very much based in the daily struggle of man.  Or you can think of it as Big Picture vs. Little Picture, whatever works for you.

You can also dumb the message down to "don't sweat the small stuff"

Adult Jack, for whatever reason, starts to reflect on his life.  He has always been more like his father (Nature) than his mother (Grace), and he's contemplating the value of what he has achieved as a successful businessman.  He wants to go back to that innocent time as a child when he felt in touch with Grace.  The flashbacks are shown in seemingly random snippets because that's how the mind reflects; when you remember something, it's usually a jumble of images, not a coherent and chronological retelling.  That also explains why seemingly important moments are glossed over; they did not directly impact Jack's memory at that time, so he just remembers being told to go inside when the neighbor had a seizure.  The yearning to go back to innocence also makes Jack question the place of man in the world, which leads to the whole Discovery channel acid trip.  Ultimately, Jack arrives at the moment when his father, Nature personified, went through the same life crisis and reevaluated his life.  The ending with all the friends and family, past and present, is Jack accepting his place in the world, with Grace.  It's the circle of life.

Nants ingonyama bagithi baba!  Sithi uhhmm ingonyama!

State of Grace

“You ever see a dog explode?”  That’s one of the first lines of dialogue in State of Grace.  I was kind of hoping that it would be an indicator of how the movie would progress --- weird, morbid dialogue is usually pretty fun, right? ---  but doesn’t really come up again.  Instead, this film turns out to be a story about deception and loyalty.  Eh, I guess that's okay, too.

Terry Noonan (Sean Penn) hasn’t been in Hell’s Kitchen for years when he finally shows up in a bar and surprises his old best friend, Jackie Flannery (Gary Oldman).  Jackie is a soldier in the Kitchen’s Irish mob; he’s not too bright, but he is funny, forever drunk, and very dangerous.  And he’s loyal to a fault.  Jackie welcomes Terry home with no reservations, and pretty soon he talks his brother, Frankie Flannery (Ed Harris), the head of their gang, into letting Terry work for them.  Being back in the Kitchen throws Terry into his old rut of trouble-making and drinking; more importantly, though, it reignites his childhood romance with Jackie’s sister, Kathleen (Robin Wright), who wants nothing to do with her brothers’ scene.  While Terry and Jackie are doing strong-arm work on the streets, Frankie is busy trying to negotiate a deal that would ally his gang with the big boys, the New York mafia.  Little does Frankie realize that his newest hire, Terry, is actually an undercover cop intent on bringing him down.

State of Grace is, for all intents and purposes, a showcase for the three main actors.  Sean Penn loves to play characters that are wracked with guilt, and Terry Noonan’s duplicitous role is right up his alley.  Penn’s performance is about what you might expect from him; he is good, but likes to overact in scenes where his character is sad or feels guilty.  Ed Harris does a much better job, internalizing most of his character’s conflicts.  I wish he was a more charismatic leader, but I’m not going to fault his performance on what the screenplay demanded.  The real star here, though, is Gary Oldman.  Nobody plays “dangerous” like Gary Oldman; his character just oozes sweat, grease, whiskey and blood.  In the hands of a less capable actor, Jackie Flannery might have come off as a gunman with a dark sense of humor (which is still pretty cool), but here is charismatic and magnetic.  Oldman makes Jackie into the center of every scene, whether by being playful, scary, or just drunk.  This certainly isn’t Oldman at his subtlest, but he's an actor whose most memorable performances are often the most over-the-top.

Is he about to punch you, or order some whiskey?  I'll give even odds.

Being a crime drama, there are a lot of characters that pop up, some with more substantial roles than others.  Robin Wright was decent as the conflicted romantic lead, but neither her acting nor her character were anything special.  John Turturro was better as Terry’s unsympathetic police contact, but this is definitely not a Coen Brothers-style supporting role; he plays his part pretty straight.  R.D. Call, an actor that I was unfamiliar with, did a very good job as Frankie’s quiet but businesslike right hand man.  A surprisingly skinny John C. Reilly shows up as a luckless gambler, and he was pretty good.  After the past five or six years of mostly comedic roles, it can be easy to forget that Reilly was once one of the best dramatic supporting actors in the business.  Burgess Meredith also had a bit part, although it wasn’t exactly a scene-stealer.

Ennio Morricone composed the score to the film, but it was far from his best work.  Unlike his stellar work with Sergio Leone in the Man With No Name trilogy, this score was very much in the background of the picture.  When I saw Morricone’s name in the credits, I hoped for more, but this was just your stereotypical, boring score.

I wasn’t particularly impressed by Phil Joanou’s direction, but it was decent.  I didn’t like the choice he made to keep Terry’s undercover status a secret for so long (almost 50 minutes!), when it was pretty obvious from the get-go.  Obviously, Joanou must have a decent touch with the actors, because he got some pretty strong performances.  I just wasn’t terribly impressed with the way the story was told.

Unfortunately, the story was the weakest part of this film, and it needed all the help it could get.  The last act of the script is just plain dumb, testosterone-fueled action, completely at odds with the tone of the rest of the movie.  I don’t think Kathleen’s character added much of anything to the overall story, and I would have preferred Terry’s friendship with Jackie be the focus.  Splitting Terry’s devotion between the two characters made his inevitable betrayal less interesting, because there was always the slim chance that Kathleen might forgive him for arresting her brothers.  Oh, and the whole waiting-an-hour-to-reveal-Terry-is-a-cop thing?  Completely unnecessary.  It was implied in the very first scene and was beyond obvious.  Really, the only surprises this movie has are what Frankie is willing to do to clinch his deal with the mafia.  Unfortunately, the focus of the story is on Terry.

State of Grace isn’t a bad movie, but it definitely underachieves.  With the talented actors here, most directors would be able to make a classic.  Instead, what we have is a less complicated version of The Departed.  Gary Oldman’s performance, though, is certainly worth watching.  It’s just too bad it was spent on an otherwise mediocre movie.

Colors

"In the heart of the city, people die for wearing the wrong colors."  Well, so do nighttime joggers who don't wear reflective gear, but nobody makes a movie about them.  The year was 1988 and inner-city gang warfare was in the news.  In the 2000s, thanks to Michael Jordan's retirement, shoe-related murder has gone down significantly gang violence is not the epidemic it once was, especially in California, but it was a huge issue in the late 80s and early 90s, one that cried out for a voice to speak about it in popular culture.  Who can speak to both the adults trying to deal with the issue and the teens tangled in the problem?  Dennis Hopper?  Really?  Interesting choice.  Hot on the heels of a career revival, helped by his performances in Blue Velvet and Hoosiers (and not at all helped by Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2), Hopper jumped back in the director's chair for the first time in eight years for Colors.  Let's see...a movie about the police and gang members in Los Angeles, around 1990...I wonder if racism will play a part...?

Danny McGavin (Sean Penn), a member of the LAPD's elite C.R.A.S.H. (Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums) unit, has a smart mouth and an attitude that requires him to lash out at the slightest sign of disrespect.  After he makes a joke about tampons during a C.R.A.S.H. meeting, McGavin is assigned to a new partner, the about-ready-to-retire Bob Hodges (Robert Duvall).  Hodges knows that you cannot police an area without the aid of its citizens.  Well, not easily, anyway.  His methods include politeness and courtesy to suspected gang members, and he usually doesn't arrest for minor infractions; he wants to build up enough trust that the people on the streets will alert him if something big or dangerous is going to happen.  McGavin doesn't do things like that.  If he's not in a car chase, he's in a foot race.  If he's he sees a suspect, he rushes in head down.  McGavin earns the nickname Pac-Man on the streets because he drives a bright yellow car and is known to eat scumbags for breakfast.  Probably not literally.  So, this is a good (easy-going) cop, bad (-ass) cop story, with Hodges at his wits end and McGavin completely baffled as to why he irritates his partner.

Meanwhile, a gang war is heating up between the local Crips, Bloods, and a few other gangs.  Lead by the deadly serious Roccet (Don Cheadle) and accompanied by the perpetually high (and possibly mentally retarded) T-Bone (Damon Wayans), the Crips have some big plans to shoot up some Bloods.  However, their plan will take them through the turf of a few other gangs, including a small but tough gang of mostly Hispanics (including a young and thankfully dialogue-free Mario Lopez).  This is the sort of big, dangerous thing that Hodges needs gang members to alert him to.  Will his methods carry the day, or will Pac-Man's?  Or maybe neither?

Robert Duvall is a very talented actor, and he plays his part of the wise veteran pretty well.  He might spend a suspicious amount of time fixing up his hair for someone who has been bald since 1960, and he might actually say "I'm too old for this shit" at one point in this film, but he plays his part and does it well.  Sean Penn also turns in a good performance, even if his acting during a mourning scene is reminiscent of I am Sam.  The rest of the cast is just bit players.  Maria Conchita Alonso has the thankless task of playing both McGavin's love interest and reality check, but she did a decent job with what she was given.  I was surprised to see Don Cheadle playing a street thug, but I'm not going to criticize the role choices for a struggling young black actor; in retrospect, it's impressive just how many complex and non-stereotypical roles Cheadle has played in his career.  It was nice to see Tony Todd pop up as an angry citizen, but it was only a cameo.  Dennis Hopper does a pretty good job directing.  I liked that there was a lot of overlapping dialogue with both the police and the gang members.  I don't know how good Hopper's instincts for storytelling were, but he was definitely able to capture realism in most scenes.

The dialogue is one of the age markers for this film.  If I had a dollar for every time someone used the word "homes" or "hommie," I would have enough to have Hopper's corpse stuffed and mounted in my apartment, probably posed with a Pabst Blue Ribbon in his hand.  Trust me, I've done the research, and there are very reasonable taxidermists in the area.  It's not that the dialogue feels strained or awkward, but a lot of it was probably going out of style when the film was released.  The music stands up pretty well, despite being clearly from 1988, with a Herbie Hancock score and Ice-T rapping the title track.  Neither are particularly memorable or relevant today, but they're pretty good for the late 80s.

I'm still not sure how much I like this movie.  It's not a lot, mind you, but I'm not quite sure what side of decently mediocre it falls on.  On the one hand, I'm glad that this movie doesn't wrap everything up with a nice bow and say, "And THAT is how to end gang violence --- introduce free ice cream Wednesdays!"  I understand that "issue" movies aren't trying to solve a problem as much as they are bringing attention to it.  I just feel like Dennis Hopper was a little too pleased with himself at the end.  The goal of this film is to follow McGavin's progression as a member of C.R.A.S.H., from a hot-head to something else.  His is the only character that has a dramatic arc, so his must be the key story, right?  Well, changing his attitude in the very last scene isn't enough.  And if McGavin is the key to the narrative, then the film should have placed more importance on his work and how Hodges influenced him, for better or for worse.  In other words, I think this would have been more effective if, instead of being about "the gang problem," it was a movie about a young police officer and his work with and against gang members.  And while I think Penn and Duvall were fine actors in this movie, they did not share much chemistry; in a surprising choice, the script doesn't require them to.  As it is, though, gangs take center stage here and the police are simply reacting to them.  If the focus is on an issue, then I feel that the audience deserves a solution to that issue, naive or stupid as that solution may be.  Without that, the film ends with no real sense of accomplishment.