How to Watch Terrence Malick's 'The Tree of Life'

For almost every viewer, the Tree of Life is a baffling movie. On a first viewing, it's hard to tell who the characters are, what's happening, and what the movie is about.

This video will help you understand some basics about the movie. It discusses what the movie is -- not a normal narrative-driven movie, but a piece of poetry or wisdom literature. It discusses how Malick's movie is related to the Book of Job in the Bible, and Saint Augustine's Confessions.

[sanidhyasingh]

After watching it three times, now I think I understand the film.
The film begins and ends with a light which represents god. In a pan theist way, as a king of cosmic energy pervading the universe. The film is like a prayer addressed to him. The two basic ideas are Nature and grace. They are two ways of living and people are conflicted which one to follow. Nature is often harsh, terrible things happen to kind people, the films advocates to live by grace, to be pacifistic, humble and accepting. This is the internal conflict of Jack, nature and grace are embodied by his father and mother respectively. We see the big bang, the evolution of universe, earth and life and this parelled by the birth and growth of Jack. A human life may seem insignificant compared to the vastness and immensity of the cosmos, but we are a part of it. We are the product of billions of years of evolution and so the film looks at the infinite through the infinitesimal. It also contrasts the world of nature and the world of man. Even after decades, Jack is still affected by his brother's death and cannot come to terms with it. He is unable to fit into the modern world and is isolated. He seeks to live with grace, he ruminates about his brother and we see him roaming in dry barren land, wondering endlessly for some answer. He reminisces about his childhood and desperately ponders on existential questions of life, death, man's place in universe and his relationship with god. At the end, he gets a glimpse of an afterlife where he is reunited with his family, this takes place near the sea which is opposite of the barren land. We see metaphors throughout the film, the shot of camera looking upwards to the sky, upwards on a tree, a half open door. It is like Striving for something eternal, it is a never ending quest. Perhaps living gracefully and being spiritual we can understand and experience 'what is'. Jack has experienced it at the end and he appears nourished and rejuvenated.

[achasingafterthewind]

Malick films in general are polarizing, I suspect because of his affinity for significantly visual storytelling. A lot of people are used to watching movies where the plot is given to them very explicitly, often through actual dialogue between characters, but Malick opts for a more meditative style, where the ideas of the film are hinted at subtly through actions, montages, and shots of the environment. His films are also notorious for featuring heavily philosophical voiceover monologues, but even those instances of dialogue are more about the interior lives of the characters, rather than a method of advancing the plot along. It's a style that works well in his films, but I understand why people find them arcane and slow.

[davidfernandez]

The most unique films I have ever watched are:
1. Fantasia (1940),
2. Rashomon (1950),
3. Rear Window (1954),
4. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968),
5. My Dinner with Andre (1981),
6. The Tree of Life (2011), and
7. It's such a Beautiful Day (2012)

[BloggerMusicMan]

This movie makes way more sense when instead of trying to follow the plot, instead you ask in each scene "what does this represent?"

When you look at it from the point of view of spiritual, emotional and symbolic representation, you see it for what I think it is: an attempt to bring the modern world, especially its moral questions, into perspective with the entire universe. To make our problems and suffering worthwhile.

This is definitely ambitious, but I think it's a marvellous and captivating attempt to do that. You also see more the more you watch it. It's very affecting.

[andybee]

It's one of most important films. I saw it 3 times within one month of it coming out. I certainly understand why it's not for everyone, including that it's very long and drawn out which one could find to be tedious. Yet i would not want it shortened one iota.

The film is about one's relationship with God, who is the main character of the film -- from the opening title shot (quoting from the Book of Job). It's a prayer, hoping to be a dialogue with God in understanding our purpose on Earth. The long scenes of creation. The dinosaurs, which show that millions of years have transpired from then until when this takes place. The creation of God and His ways are beyond our understanding, but the idea is here that everything has a reason and purpose. The theme is very religious in that way, which also is very unusual in today's movies.

The film is just brilliant in the small scenes -- which probably took hours and hours and hours of camera footage before getting this amazing small scenes with the children. It's a slice of life, with the Brad Pitt character being truly noble yet very flawed. The acting is just amazing. I would recommend allowing yourself to feel the film and not be bothered if you don't get everything about it. It doesn't follow the typical Hollywood formula which is troubling to many. But life doesn't follow that formula either. And this film is truly a replica of a Slice of Life.

[Otokichi]

Interesting, there's a link between "2001: A Space Odyssey, " "Brainstorm, " and "The Tree of Life"? The first two films "I get" and wish that "Brainstorm" is/was more highly regarded than it is. I'm currently trying to figure out if "The Tree of Life" is worth watching to the end. (Much of the time, I can't hear what the characters are whispering about, which makes me wonder if I'm wasting my time.) If not for the Classical music soundtrack, I'd have "walked out, " too. (I don't recall any recent movie using Bedrich Smetant's "The Moldau, " to illustrate the flow of memory?) I lived through the 1950's and find those scenes almost nostalgic, though Brad Pitt's character "has a ramrod stuck up his rectum." It's the late afternoon of 30 June, 2020, and this film has the misfortune of following two Robert Bresson films from Turner Classic Movies.

[garrettbays]

Forgive me if this has already been mentioned, but Douglas Trumbull was not the cinematographer of 2001: A Space Odyssey; he was one of the special photographic effects supervisors. The film was photographed by Geoffrey Unsworth, with additional photography by John Alcott.
Douglas Trumbull was actually a visual effects consultant on The Tree of Life.

[robertojacome]

I highly recommend you to read his script which details what malick meant. As well as leaving room for interpretation. It is a masterpiece. One I didn't like at first but as each viewing went by it shot up to my top 4 favorites movies ever. Malick is my favorite Director. God Bless him.

[carrieanderson]

Recently saw this movie & was blown away by the creative by the narration, the silent prayers & poems

[mattmccarthy]

This film has troubled me from nearly 10 years, trying to understand what it means. I’m only 26, so as I’ve grown since I first watched it, it’s had different meanings.

Do you think films like these have room left by the writer/director for relative interpretation? Maybe part of the reason it was so critically acclaimed was that Malick knew there would be such a spread of different theories of its meaning, and that is part of the viewing experience.

This video gave me a whole new perspective on the film, and I thank you for it.

[evenorahpausetdaviod]

Hello and thank you for this reference to Saint Augustine. A director who has studied heidegger, kierkegaard and wittgenstein inevitably feels the need to adapt cinematographic language to his thinking, and not the other way around. Along with tarkovsky, he is certainly one of the rare directors to have worked on the question of ontology.

[elfsieben]

Thanks for reminding me of "Brainstorm" again. I want to watch rewatch it as soon as possible. It's premise was also taken up in "Strange Days" again, another interesting movie.

To me, "The Tree of Life" is also a reflection on story-telling itself, its mechanism and its power; as Jack re-cuts, re-arranges, re-tells his own story in montages, voice-over, imagined/invented inner monologue of what his parents might have thought. Is it a re-mix? A re-write? Something re-made or made-up? If the latter, made up out of what? Any which way, it seems to give Jack purpose, direction, fulfillment. So, the movie might not even be about the universe at large, but about Jack (re-)creating his own universe, his personal origin story, to find his own role amidst a staggeringly large universe outside of him.

Therefore I would connect it to movies like "Dark City", "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind", "Still Alice" (all of them asking what remains of us if memories are taken out of the equation?) and "Living in Oblivion", "The Machinist", "The Science of Sleep", "Tideland" (all of them dealing with how we process our memories and even our real-time perception of the world, by ways of art, dreams, playing, stories).

[HomeAtLast]

I saw this film 4 times when it was in the theater, and I've seen it probably 20 more times since. I have several comments:

(1) To completely understand this film I feel it's critical to understand Jungian dream analysis, with a special emphasis on dream symbols;
(2) Rather than think of the narrative as a wisdom book, I think it's far more accurate to think of the symbolic scenes as being driven by dream logic, as you'd see in, say, Fellini's "Fellini Satyricon".
(3) The final scene could be interpreted as heaven, etc. But you're missing a CRITICAL point at the end --- both Sean Penn's character and the mother find resolution, they come to fully accept the loss of the brother/son. Note that in that final beach scene the mother says, "I give him to you, I give you my son". She is accepting his death, and releasing him back to God.
(4) The dominant symbology of the film revolves around the sun, and the light. Everything moves toward the light. Note in the final scene, when Jessica give her son back to God and accepts her loss, the boy walks toward the sun. I could go on and on about the light as a theme, and moving toward the light.
(5) The point of the evolution of the universe sequence is to show how, in part, under the ocean, as life evolved, it was all darkness and savagery. But you'll note everything moves up toward the light they see above the surface of the water. Then that first dinosaur goes from the water to the land. And then we see the first glimpse of empathy of compassion when that one dinosaur is dying, and the other one that stumbles upon it spares its life. But that beach scene -- the beach is the threshold from the ocean to the land. Life moved toward the land, and out of the depths of the water, to get closer to the light, to God, to the sun.
(6) Sean Penn's character is struggling with accepting his brother's death, but his other big struggle is integrating the dark and light within himself. Remember he says as a child, "mother, father, you'll always wrestle within me". The mother is love, the light, the father carries that fighting warrior spirit we initially see underwater, when the sharks attack.

[teknatheou]

People thought Renoir was crazy and maniacal, walked out of the theater, with Rules of the Game as well. They hated Stravinsky for Rite of Spring. Often the best works require generations to appreciate them, especially in modern times when the general public is fed really kitschy stuff in the name of 'art' and so come to expect this out of movies. If they came without expectations and just let the experience wash over and change them they wouldn't react in that way. In my opinion, the audiences' reaction to Malick's work does not at all detract from his achievement. Moreover, as cinema becomes more and more shaped by his style of filmmaking (which is already beginning to happen) his work will become more accessible to the general public, though of course will always remain challenging and will always force viewers to move out of their comfort zone (which is what all great art does).

[WIGGER_AESTHETIC_]

I just watched it, before this video. I didnt really get it, but somehow I saw the connection to Job, and the other biblical motifs. Even without understanding the plot, it touched me emotionally. I have to watch it again. Such a strange and wonderful film, where one doesn't even need to understand the plot, but the message is clear, and the emotions shine through.

[zootsoot]

I wouldn't get too hung up on allusions to previous literature. Malick is an existentialist filmmaker, which means conceptual understanding should be avoided, experiential understanding is key. The multitude of different shots around the Universe and between ages is meant to show the superfluity of life and how it is its own thing, i.e it cannot be contained in any conceptual understanding.

However, there is the potential for redemption from the mass of suffering that exists in becoming, to realise that there is also being and being always exists now, represented by the shots of pure light included in every scene. Once you find that, when Sean Penn's character realises that, then all suffering is overcome, all things happen at the same time and all beings are fundamentally united, shown by the beach scene at the end. Therefore the mother can give her son up at the end. She gives him over to God because God is all there ever is, and all separation and therefore suffering is just an illusion.

Most beautiful film I've ever seen and certainly a movie I'd recommend to anyone who's lost a loved one, though they may have to sit with it a while.

[autofocus]

The concept of brainstorm reminds me of the movie strange days.

[bishwashbhatta]

Watched it 4 years ago now that i am filming i know it's importance

[satexman]

What few people pick up from the timeline...and the learning of the death via 'telegram' is that he died in Vietnam. The son his father wanted to 'make tough'....'HIT ME"...the son that had something to prove. And it cost him his life. Then the guilt. It's actually a story about a man who dies in a war. His childhood and the family that survives it and has to live with it. Nothing more but told so brilliantly that it's rarely comprehended that is what it is.

[DrJoelDuff]

Really helpful analysis. I hadn't ever heard anyone make the connection to the Augustine before.