The first rule of Terrence Malick club is do not talk about the story or plot or characters in the same way you’d talk about such things in a Steven Spielberg movie. There’s no use. It’s comparing apples to birds. His early movies from the 70s, Badlands and Days of Heaven, are the closest he comes to creating something of a beginning-middle-end type of story we’ve grown accustomed to in movies, and they’re not exactly straightforward narrative pieces. In his later, richer work, beginning with The Thin Red Line after twenty years of cinematic inactivity, his decided-upon film style essentially abandoned linear structure and went full avant garde on us. This is a quality that people will quickly roll their eyes at and dismiss, which is not entirely unreasonable, but at least in the case of Malick, there’s more interesting things going on than telling a story the way most movies do.
It’s because there’s still a story behind movies like The New World (where it’s slightly more obvious because we’re somewhat familiar with the Pocahontas story) and The Tree of Life. They’re just not being told in the way we’re used to. We have to adjust our minds a little bit and know what we’re getting into. So for a movie like The Tree of Life, for instance, we’re presented a collection of thoughts by a man reflecting on his childhood. It’s the same in the previous two movies as well, thoughts on war and on exploration. If we think of our own lives, much of the way we remember our personal histories is not through linear narratives but a collection of impressions, thoughts and feelings about a mishmash of occurrences. It’s far less verbal and more of a story based on emotion and mind’s eye visuals. So while a straight narrative like Avatar will tap into a series of feelings for us, something like The Tree of Life will access a similar level of feeling, just in a different way. If we can find a way to surrender to this style and are fortunate enough to connect with it, this makes for an immensely powerful experience at the movies. But it also means not everyone will experience it in the same way.
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