The Tree of Life @ 10: The wonder of the movie theater
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…