Like Wes Anderson, Terrance Malick is one of the very few modern auteurs to have a singularly defined style that is instantly recognizable. Perhaps it says something about me that I prefer Malick’s primal, ethereal vision of the world, especially in a film like this, to Anderson’s fussy precision. Watching this movie feels like floating in a quiet, shallow river on a warm summer day. Almost completely eschewing traditional narrative, Malick often builds emotion around the carefully arranged juxtaposition of images in a style reminiscent of the Soviet Montage theorists of the 1920s, but from the perspective of a 19th century Romantic. The camera moves here constantly, gracefully, like a ballet dancer underwater. (Indeed, there’s a beautiful shot of Jessica Chastain dancing in the yard so exquisitely she begins floating.) All of this, plus the classical score and whispered narration creates this effect for me of immersive emotion, as if the film is feeding through an IV directly to my soul.
I can’t imagine anyone else daring to make a film like this or to raise the questions he does. This film is a reflection on no less than the entire history of the universe. The insignificance of existence. The incomprehensibility of grief. The unknowability of God. These are themes too transcendent for words (especially my own attempt at explication), which is why Malick’s meditative style is so intimately well-suited for this exploration.
Review by Tony BatesVIP 2BlockedParent2022-12-29T01:20:50Z
Like Wes Anderson, Terrance Malick is one of the very few modern auteurs to have a singularly defined style that is instantly recognizable. Perhaps it says something about me that I prefer Malick’s primal, ethereal vision of the world, especially in a film like this, to Anderson’s fussy precision. Watching this movie feels like floating in a quiet, shallow river on a warm summer day. Almost completely eschewing traditional narrative, Malick often builds emotion around the carefully arranged juxtaposition of images in a style reminiscent of the Soviet Montage theorists of the 1920s, but from the perspective of a 19th century Romantic. The camera moves here constantly, gracefully, like a ballet dancer underwater. (Indeed, there’s a beautiful shot of Jessica Chastain dancing in the yard so exquisitely she begins floating.) All of this, plus the classical score and whispered narration creates this effect for me of immersive emotion, as if the film is feeding through an IV directly to my soul.
I can’t imagine anyone else daring to make a film like this or to raise the questions he does. This film is a reflection on no less than the entire history of the universe. The insignificance of existence. The incomprehensibility of grief. The unknowability of God. These are themes too transcendent for words (especially my own attempt at explication), which is why Malick’s meditative style is so intimately well-suited for this exploration.