The first thing that
came to mind watching this film was that they copied the stargate sequence from
2001! And the overall message reminded me of 2001 (with the Dawn of Man and
Stargate sequences) with Boyhood spliced into the middle somewhere (same
growing up in Texas trope).
Apart from reminding me
of 2001 and Boyhood , I mainly noticed the Christianity narrative. As an
atheist I actually take a lot of interest in how religious people view the
world. My brother is actually studying at Colorado Christian to one day become
a pastor but that’s another story…
Starting with the
abstract color shape thing which I assumed to be the holy spirit or god in some
sort. Then the voice over tells us about grace and nature, later to be
represented by Jessica Chastain and Brad Pitt. The camera seems to always be
pointing at the sun as a constant reminder of god’s presence and grace. This
leads to my favorite part of the film ,the cosmic creation sequence. The sound
design is perfectly done in my opinion with a beautiful, angelic voice to
confirming that god is behind it all. This shifts to the sound of volcanoes and
the beginnings of life. Malick obviously
took a lot from 2001 for this sequence and knowingly so since he hired Douglas
Trumbull for the special effects (who was robbed an Oscar for 2001 which went
to Kubrick). He even has similar flyover shots like in 2001. It makes sense
though since both films try to depict bizarre cosmological events and worlds.
The rest of the film
felt like a stumbling through the past with the handheld, wide-angle lens
wandering and skipping around in his childhood like an introspective acid trip.
Like memories, the images are just snippets from the reality such as birds
chirping (which can be heard almost nonstop in this sequence) or the image of
his brother sitting with his guitar. And, like Boyhood, Tree of Life showed the
awkwardness of puberty and growing up. Boyhood showed a scene with the boys
looking at a dirty magazine and Tree of Life had the boy stealing his mother’s
slip.
"The first thing that came to mind watching this film was that they copied the stargate sequence from 2001! And the overall message reminded me of 2001 (with the Dawn of Man and Stargate sequences) with Boyhood spliced into the middle somewhere (same growing up in Texas trope)."
ReplyDeleteI talked about the 2001 connection in class - Though they are really different in character, there is a shared spirit of "awe" and some similar looking shots - Kubrick uses dissonant 20th century music, Malick uses classical "religious" or spiritual music. Both films seek transcendence, in a way...
The boy steals a neighbor's slip - big difference from a Freudian as well as risk perspective
Overall, this journal reflects that fact that you did it all over the last two days. That's not what I asked for.
ReplyDeleteC-, late.