Powered By Blogger

Friday, August 12, 2011

The Tree of Life (2011)- Brad Pitt (2)

Director: Terrence Malick

Stars: Brad Pitt, Sean Penn and Jessica Chastain

Genre:  Drama

MPAA Rating:  PG-13 (for some thematic material)

Running Time: 139 Mins

Tagline: None



I don’t know where to begin, I honestly don’t; this was NOT the type of movie I was expecting to go see at the cinema. I assumed by the films trailer, that the movie was going to be reminiscent to Curious Case of Benjamin Button. I really thought that because of the photography, and the fact Brad Pitt was the star of the film.   All of this couldn’t be farther from the truth, this is one of the biggest acid trips I have ever had, and I don’t use drugs, which makes it all even weirder.

The movie tries in many ways to be like Kubrick’s 2001, you will see what I mean by that in the following paragraphs.  The cast of this movie is really irrelevant; they have little to no purpose in this movie. The whole thing concentrates more on the photography and I guess...Philosophy, so to speak, of what might happen when we die. After the death of the brother of Sean Penn’s character (who only has 5 min of screen time) we witness a bizarre combination of wild imagery, combining glaziers falling,  spermatozoids entering the ovary, and  a segment involving a dinosaur having mercy on another creature. At times I thought I was watching a Discovery Channel Documentary on Crack. I guess the Director wanted to appeal the audience with an abstract, non cohesive and illogical film.


For those who have read this far and still want to really know what the movie is about, then keep reading. Brad Pitt plays a father of 3 children during the 60’s. We see through some parts of the film (the understandable parts) how he raises his children, with discipline and high morality.  The kids fear the father, and all they really want to do is just be kids, have the opportunity to play and be like any other child.  Around all of this, we also see Sean Penn, who at one point was one of the kids, walking around a city just looking and gazing at nothing. They even show Sean Penn in a desert for no fucking reason, at the end he meets up with his parents who had died many years ago (I assume, they never clarify)

This whole thing was really absurd, I have a hard time talking about it because I still have no clue what its about. It tries too hard to be like 2001 in terms of photography and pace, which reminds me how fucking slow and boring this shit was.  I only give it two stars for the visual effects, that look superb, yet they are pointless. I don’t recommend this movie to anyone, avoid it.

No comments:

Post a Comment