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The Tree of Life
Movie Blurb by Shale
June 19, 2011
This was my second choice of a movie this week. Saw the trailers and it looked like an interesting story of a struggle between a boy and his dad set in the time of my own childhood of the 1950s.
And, being Fathers' Day I decided to risk the forecast rain and bike to the Cinema. The good news is the rain didn't come until I got back home. The bad news is, I did not care for the movie at all.
It is an art film almost like some of those from Europe that Americans can't understand. Now, I like art and can easily spend 2 hours and 10 minutes in the National Gallery of Art, but I was actually expecting a movie, not a view of the beautiful cosmos from the Hubble telescope then from the macrocosm to the microcosm of one celled animals then to evolving to dinosaurs to ... This movie literally starts at the beginning. Well, eventually we get to a story told in vignettes with little dialogue, lots of inaudible whispers (good thing about European art films - they have English subtitles) and no real plot or timeline.
Without words, we learn of a family tragedy, by a mother (Jessica Chastain) receiving a telegram. We see the effects on her oldest adult son Jack (Sean Penn) of his youngest brother's death. (We don't see much of Penn acting and I don't recall any actual lines).
From there we flashback to a beginning when Jack is born and his father Mr. O'Brian (Brad Pitt) is pleased.
But dad is a no-nonsense, war vet, fifties kinda guy and there is soon friction with his oldest son (Hunter McCracken) as he runs a strict household. We go thru the arrival of his other two brothers, the one with the most interaction being the middle brother (Laramie Eppler) with the usual sibling rivalry and bonding.
There is a statement made in the movie about "The way of nature or the way of grace - you have to choose which one you will follow." That point is manifested in the father who sternly teaches his boys survival in the natural world and the mother who shows them grace - acceptance of her boys unconditionally.
Even with as a brutish domineering father and husband Mr. O'Brien still has love for his boys and does show affection.
And even tho his wife is subdued like wives were in that time she (like my own mother) did fight back when pushed too far.
Cinematography was excellent; imagery was compelling. The fact that I was there, a boy in the South in the fifties I could almost smell the damp pine woods and dusty old buildings. I could feel the dirt and sweat worked up in play by crew-cut boys back then.
But as fine as it may have been in the opinions of critics (86% aggregate reviewers liked it on Rottentomatoes - 67% of audiences did) I didn't really enjoy it. Rene Rodriguez of The Miami Herald gave this movie three stars out of four, which I glanced at in passing and went to see it.
Ironically this is the same reviewer who gave Green Lantern one star, a movie I enjoyed exponentially better. Proves one thing - movie enjoyment is strictly a personal matter.
Movie Blurb by Shale
June 19, 2011
This was my second choice of a movie this week. Saw the trailers and it looked like an interesting story of a struggle between a boy and his dad set in the time of my own childhood of the 1950s.
And, being Fathers' Day I decided to risk the forecast rain and bike to the Cinema. The good news is the rain didn't come until I got back home. The bad news is, I did not care for the movie at all.
It is an art film almost like some of those from Europe that Americans can't understand. Now, I like art and can easily spend 2 hours and 10 minutes in the National Gallery of Art, but I was actually expecting a movie, not a view of the beautiful cosmos from the Hubble telescope then from the macrocosm to the microcosm of one celled animals then to evolving to dinosaurs to ... This movie literally starts at the beginning. Well, eventually we get to a story told in vignettes with little dialogue, lots of inaudible whispers (good thing about European art films - they have English subtitles) and no real plot or timeline.
Without words, we learn of a family tragedy, by a mother (Jessica Chastain) receiving a telegram. We see the effects on her oldest adult son Jack (Sean Penn) of his youngest brother's death. (We don't see much of Penn acting and I don't recall any actual lines).
From there we flashback to a beginning when Jack is born and his father Mr. O'Brian (Brad Pitt) is pleased.
But dad is a no-nonsense, war vet, fifties kinda guy and there is soon friction with his oldest son (Hunter McCracken) as he runs a strict household. We go thru the arrival of his other two brothers, the one with the most interaction being the middle brother (Laramie Eppler) with the usual sibling rivalry and bonding.
There is a statement made in the movie about "The way of nature or the way of grace - you have to choose which one you will follow." That point is manifested in the father who sternly teaches his boys survival in the natural world and the mother who shows them grace - acceptance of her boys unconditionally.
Even with as a brutish domineering father and husband Mr. O'Brien still has love for his boys and does show affection.
And even tho his wife is subdued like wives were in that time she (like my own mother) did fight back when pushed too far.
Cinematography was excellent; imagery was compelling. The fact that I was there, a boy in the South in the fifties I could almost smell the damp pine woods and dusty old buildings. I could feel the dirt and sweat worked up in play by crew-cut boys back then.
But as fine as it may have been in the opinions of critics (86% aggregate reviewers liked it on Rottentomatoes - 67% of audiences did) I didn't really enjoy it. Rene Rodriguez of The Miami Herald gave this movie three stars out of four, which I glanced at in passing and went to see it.
Ironically this is the same reviewer who gave Green Lantern one star, a movie I enjoyed exponentially better. Proves one thing - movie enjoyment is strictly a personal matter.
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