The Tree of Life @ 10: The wonder of the movie theater
Thursday, May 27, 2021 at 3:00PM 
As a Portuguese cinephile, the last few weeks have been a weird mixture of happiness for others and ugly jealousy. Looking on social media, I can see international friends returning to movie theaters, fully vaccinated, while I remain at home, not knowing when such privileges will be accessible. I realize this bitterness is wrong, but I can't help it. I miss going to the movies quite terribly. I miss being engulfed by the images projected on the big screen and feeling a wall of sound crash over my head like a tidal wave. However, unlike other filmgoers, I don't care too much about the communal aspect of the experience (with the exception of film festivals).
As a way of exorcising these demons and explaining the yearning, let me describe one of the most memorable filmgoing experiences I can remember. It happened around a decade ago, upon The Tree of Life's release…
Picture 16-year-old Cláudio, a teenaged cinephile who'd been following the Cannes Film Festival coverage with rapt attention. As soon as the newest Palme d'Or victor arrived in theaters, I dragged my mom to the cinema with me. She was the only person half-willing to put herself through the two-hour-plus rumination on spiritual existentialism many critics had described The Tree of Life as being. While enticed by the ecstatic reactions coming from France, I confess that Terrence Malick was a bit of an unknown to me at the time. As an Oscar aficionado, I knew of him, but The Tree of Life would be my first. It's fair to say I was unprepared for what I was about to witness.
Getting to the cinema, it was apparent that The Tree of Life wasn't the generally anticipated movie event of the year I had envisioned. The theater was mostly empty, apart from a few stragglers, an elderly couple, and a gaggle of other teens who had no idea what they were getting themselves into by their loud conversation. I think it was during commercials, or perchance the trailers' preview, that my mom realized one of her contact lenses had torn and her glasses weren't there. She'd have to watch The Tree of Life with only one eye. There's always some anxiety when watching movies with someone dear to me, a need for them to have as good an experience as I have. Suffice it to say, I was overstressed about her sudden lack of depth perception. Still, there was nothing to be done short of leaving. The film was about to start.
When I tell you The Tree of Life was one of the most overwhelming spiritual and aesthetic experiences I ever had in a movie theater, I'm not exaggerating. From the first shot, after a quote from the Book of Job, Malick plunges the viewer into an intersection of the cosmical and the intimate. From the deep darkness of the black screen, amorphous light blossoms in what could be clouds or stardust, maybe an organism observed from within. In some mysterious way, this vision can represent both the start of human life and the dawn of the whole universe, the warmth of the womb and the Big Bang synchronized in one single image. The screen of the theater is thus both too big and too small to present the paradox. It's neither human-sized nor expansive enough to hold the birth of everything. Or is it?
In abstraction, there's space for infinite possibility. The entire cosmos can exist in those colorful wisps of smokiness that Malick presents with little preamble. Though, it would be wrong to characterize The Tree of Life as an abstract film. As an artistic project, it defies description, but one can ascertain some truths about its meandering nature. For all the majestic imagery of the beginning of all life, it's also a concrete exploration of familial grief, the haunting of memory, the loss of a brother, a son, an innocent and kindred spirit. We see glimpses of a Texan father and mother receiving the news of their child's death and observe how the ramifications of mourning persist into his sibling's adult life. This isn't undefined as much as it is painfully specific, from the architecture of Eisenhower-era suburbia giving in to giants of modernist glass and steel to the lived-in reality of growing up in a house full of children.
The interwoven threads of immenseness and domesticity felt gigantic on that big screen. Moreover, it was akin to a cinematic communion, the sharing of something even more visceral than aching memory, a full-bodied ecstasy that's equal parts spiritual and material. As Emmanuel Lubezki's camera flies, seemingly untethered to gravity or the laws of physics, the world feels immediate in its beauty, relentless in its perpetual state of slow decay, even tactile. The editing avoids conventional storytelling, preferring to follow the rules of self-reflection rather than the dogma of narrative. However, each image shines with complex meaning, be it thematic or implicitly sensualist. A heavenly beach suggests what comes after infinity, a realm of conjecture and ethereal dreams. In contrast, the shot of a foot cleaned by a garden sprinkler is no less important because of its earthbound banality, no less evocative or rich.
Malick's images would be nothing without their companion sounds, it must be said. While watching The Tree of Life, I found myself thinking, probably for the first time, about the immense expressivity of cinematic sonority. Maybe this attention came from vexation, as I still recall the couple sitting nearby, who kept munching on noisy snacks throughout the film. Regardless, through the cacophony of crinkly foil and crunchy popcorn, I can still savor the odd glory of that most wondrous vaulted ceiling of garden noises which became something akin to an angel's choir in Malick's film. The mix privileges music over foley while never drowning the noise of nature altogether. Above all that, the often-mocked poetic voiceover of all Malick flicks washes over the picture. The words are deceptively simple if sepulchrally serious, softly whispered, but their phrasing is vague enough to ignite philosophical contemplation. They sound like confessions and a lover's kiss upon the ear, interior thoughts exteriorized by the theater's surrounding speakers.
Oh, how I love The Tree of Life and how I feel my words are not enough to capture its miracle. Better writers have explored the film's greatness with more eloquence than I'll ever manage – Nick Davis, Tim Brayton, Kent Jones – and yet I feel compelled to wax rhapsodic in indulgent prose. Forgive me for the excess, but the memory of watching The Tree of Life on the big screen moves me to tears. It reminds me of why I love cinema and the experience of watching it projected big and wide, dragging me to temporary oblivion. That sort of immersive quality is nearly impossible to achieve at home, no matter how big and sophisticated the setup is. That's not to say I didn't experience transcendence movies at home, but there's something special about the monumental majesty that the theater can bring.
Looking back, I think those two hours in a late Spring afternoon irrevocably changed who I am as a cinephile, opening me to other possibilities of expression, the importance of sound, the idea that a single image can contain the entire universe. This nostalgic love can also be traced to the memorable circumstances of that day – the crunchy noise, my fellow teens who left the theater rumbling that they didn't understand anything, my mom driving us home in a partial-blindness-incurred panic while I babbled by her side, still lost in a daze. I hope to return to movie theaters as soon as possible, and when I do, I might even write a follow-up to this piece. Until then, I contend myself with the bittersweet memories of that glorious day when I first saw The Tree of Life.
Reader Comments (11)
One of my greatest theatrical experiences, as well. I'm sort of afraid to revisit the film on the small screen for fear of a diminished effect, although that's probably foolish.
Also one of my defining theatre experiences. Still hands down the best movie of the 21st century imo. I also love Tim’s review of it
Watching Tre of Life in a theater was a truly transcendent experience. It's still good at home, but doesn't have nearly the same emotional/spiritual impact, because of the lack of the immersive effect you describe.
I love love love the film, except for the final sequence of everyone walking in the desert. Felt like one too many metaphors. But still a powerful experience. Would’ve nominated Pitt and Chastain for sure for their respective roles.
Truly a film for the ages and it had to be seen on the big screen like all of Malick's films. It is an immersive experience as I saw it at the Tara Theatre near Lenox and downtown Atlanta in Cheshire as it was less-than-half of a full screening yet it was gorgeous. There is no filmmaker like Malick and he really ups the ante of what cinema could be.
I hope you don’t think this is condescending, but the revelation that you were only 16 when this movie came out is a surprise to me because I would never have guessed based on your writing that you were so young. I’d say you’re wise beyond your years if that weren’t such a cliche.
In any case, this was a great read, and it made me want to revisit the film since I fear I may not have been able to give it a fair shot when I saw it in theaters. In my defense, it wasn’t entirely my fault; at the time, I was living in a town that didn’t have any kind of film community, and it was something of a shock that it even played at the local AMC 24 (all we had in that area were corporate multiplexes). The audience reaction undoubtedly soured my appreciation of the experience, as they were quite a few walkouts and even more cases of scoffing, snickering, and even heckling. That audience absolutely hated it, and their palpable hatred of it affected my own ability to enjoy it. In fact, the next time I was at the theater a few days later I noticed they had put up a sign at the box office warning customers that The Tree of Life was a “very slow movie” that was “not for everyone.”
I just realized I've never seen a Malick film on a big screen. Must rectify.
This movie made me feel physically ill. All of those quick edits, camera sweeps, doors opening, walking through the grass, etc. gave me a major headache. Some parts were beautiful, yes, but then some parts looked like a montage from a tampon commercial. Sorry film bros I couldn’t wait for this one to be over.
Wow. Tree of LIfe is 10. I was thinking about this movie this morning. There are lilacs blowing in the trees right now and I thought of Chivo's camerawork in the film.
Terrible, disjointed film. And what was that patched in interlude with prehistoric animals? Even Leonard Maltin only gave it 2.5 stars.
A transcendent, beautiful life altering experience. And that's just this article!