The title is the central question that Malick asks in this film and that he attempts to answer with The Tree of Life.
In fact, it is a bit too general to use "good people" and "bad people". What this movie really wants to discuss is: if you treat life with "grace" or "nature", life will suffer, so why choose "grace" ?
"grace" and "nature" here are difficult to sum up in one word accurately. "nature" means a kind of not being bound by morality, dog bites dog, not kind to others, "don't have to thank anyone because they are good to you because of your ability", a social Darwinian worldview and way of life, as in the movie Father taught them to be fierce because others will not treat you well, just like the male protagonist Jack bullied others and even shot his brother's finger in the end when he was rebellious; and "grace" is of course the opposite, that is, a kind of anti-life. Keep a grateful attitude, be kind to others, abide by the morality and bottom line of the world view and lifestyle, just like the mother in the movie Mrs. O'Brien is very gentle to her children and the male protagonist's younger brother RL forgives the male protagonist for pointing his finger at him. gun.
Story-wise, The Tree of Life is about a family. I will first list the film line of this story, and then write my understanding of each part of the film line:
——The film begins with a mysterious light flickering. Then picture everything, we came to the real world. This is in a small town in the United States. In the late 1960s, another son of Mrs. O'brien, RL, Jack's brother, died, which made the family very sad. Mrs. O'brien was especially confused because RL It is typical to follow the "grace" lifestyle. If both the "grace" and "nature" lifestyles end up being supplementing, what's the point of her choosing "grace"?
——Then the camera cuts to a city full of skyscrapers, a flock of birds flying in the air, with bgm, it looks beautiful, sublime and shocking;
——The camera cuts back to continue the grief of Mr. and Mrs. O'Brien. Then, through a subjective lens of Mrs. O'Brien looking at the lake surface (that is, the picture of the lake surface), the film transitions to a sequence that shows from the birth of the universe to the impact of the asteroid on the earth, causing the earth's surface and earth's life to be greatly destroyed;
——Everything in the picture, the timeline jumps, we come to a sandbar, and the adult Jack is walking in this desolate sandbar. Then he woke up, it turned out to be a dream of his. When it was time for work, he rushed to the depressed, lifeless office with a blank face. When looking at the steel forest outside the office building, his thoughts kept drifting. We followed his thoughts and saw the fantasy in his thoughts. There are all kinds of sequences, realistic, surreal, and natural. , and so on.
——Gradually, his thoughts drifted to the 1950s, when his father and mother recognized each other. The scene turns, his mother Mrs. O'Brien gave birth to him. From this moment on, the whole movie becomes his (young) point of view. This story is about the childhood and adolescence of Jack and the two brothers, their innocence, their father and mother's interactions with them, Jack's rebellious period and RL's kindness, the dirty and dark adult world they see in their eyes, etc. .
——Gradually, the picture transitions to the grieving mother who just lost her child in the late 1960s, and then transitions back to the steel jungle, and the adult Jack ends his thoughts.
——Then, the movie switched to the "Man and Nature" part. Here is the earth 5 billion years later, the sun became a red giant star and destroyed all life on earth, the earth became desolate and lifeless, and the sun became a white dwarf
——The camera turned again, and the adult Jack was walking on the sandbar again, but unlike the last time there was no one, this time he was led by him when he was young. Then he went to the seaside, his childhood home, etc., to reunite and interact with his childhood, his young mother, his young father, his old mother, his young brother, and so on. This paragraph is hard to describe, the overall design is full of surrealism.
——The camera turns back to the current Jack. He left the office building with a smile. Everything in the picture has become the mysterious light at the beginning of the movie, and it still flickers. The movie is over.
After clarifying the context, let's interpret the film line now.
The film begins with a mysterious light that represents "life" and the surrounding darkness is naturally "universe/nature". The light is so small in the boundless darkness, yet so shining. The screen turns to enter the story. Mrs. O'brien ushered in the pain of bereavement, which led to the theme of the film, namely: "If you treat life with "grace" or "nature", life will suffer, so why choose " grace"? "The movie starts here, of course, because it wants to get right to the point, and if it were told in sequence from the 1950s, the story would have been digressing for a long time.
Not long after, we saw the entire sequence from the birth of the universe to the asteroid hitting the earth, and the sequence was accompanied by a few questions from Mrs. O'Brien. In fact, the most difficult part of the whole story to understand is the fragments of these two universes. How to understand them? Are they part of the story? Is it stream of consciousness? Or something else?
This part also bothered me for a long time. After looking at the sources, my opinion is that they are "answers from God". Yes, to a certain extent, "The Tree of Life" is a spiritual film, a religious film, and even a fantasy film to a certain extent (after all, whether there is a God is unknown). Only when we take those two cosmic segments as answers from God to humans can we explain very clearly where these segments fit in the structure of the film. If it is interpreted as part of the story, it itself is too unclear compared to the other parts, not like the story, but more like to stir up an emotion in the audience; and stream of consciousness is even less likely, watch this The filmmakers should have seen a lot of stream-of-consciousness movies, and ask themselves, how can there be such a clear logic of stream-of-consciousness movies that follow scientific theories. It's even more ridiculous to think of it as something akin to a rational/vaudeville montage, when have you seen such a long montage? After such a long time, the effect of montage has long since dissipated. And as a montage, how should one understand Mrs.O'Brien's narration? Therefore, the only angle can only be an answer from some kind of being. Thinking that Malick is a Christian, and that the form of Job's story he quoted at the beginning is the "dialogue" between God and Job, and thinking that God's answer in the Bible is always ambiguous and mysterious (very similar to the feeling of the fragment), we It can be boldly concluded that the two inserted universe fragments in the film are God's answer to Mrs.O'Brien's question.
So what did God express through the first cosmic fragment? He showed the infinity of the universe and the shortness of human beings. Because of the achievements of science and technology, modern human beings have a sense of superiority to other existences in the universe, which makes them unable to appreciate those things peacefully; and as we are gradually shocked by the vastness of the universe and let go of this superiority, we begin to realize The subtle "beauty" in the universe, those jellyfish, creeks, dinosaurs, cells, etc. are all beautifully photographed by Malick.
Of course, we couldn't tell what it felt like the first time we watched this clip. This is like the kind of dialogue between God and believers. The dialogue at the beginning is always mysterious and mysterious, and then it gradually becomes concrete. So Malick put this paragraph up front and the rest of the story behind to support the argument for this cosmic fragment.
Moving on to the movie line. After the cosmic fragment, we came to the current Jack's timeline, various offices and steel forests, a typical "nature" style cold, profit-seeking lifestyle. In his dissatisfaction with reality, Jack remembered his childhood life, so the audience was naturally drawn back to the 1950s, the childhood of Jack and the two brothers, their innocent life at the beginning, the filth of the adult world, Mr.O 'Brien's dismissal, Jack's later rebellious period and RL's kindness, etc. During this period, Jack and his father both began to regret after choosing the "nature" way and began to approach the "grace" way of life. As Mr. O'Brien said after his factory went bankrupt: "I wanted to be loved because I was great; A big man. I'm nothing. Look at the glory around us; trees, birds. I lived in shame. I dishonored it all, and didn't notice the glory. I'm a foolish man."
This whole story of modern Jack and Jack of the fifties is actually an example of what makes sense for that piece of the universe. That is to say, although we choose "grace" and we choose "nature", we will suffer, but only "grace" can fill us with love and let us appreciate the beauty of the world, and "nature" will only make us continue to fall into the quagmire of hatred.
After the fifties story, we're back in the modern Jack's office building, and then there's another cosmic segment followed by a surreal dream-like family reunion segment, which can also be seen as God's answer to Jack. Putting these two paragraphs together is this: (after you understand the benefits of the "grace" lifestyle) you can still be happy despite suffering on this scale.
As for why God uses these surreal fragments to express the "you can still be happy" argument? That's because many of these clips are actually echoes of the previous modern Jack's dream (that is, the dream of the modern Jack following the end of the first cosmic clip). So he said in an audio-visual way: (With the "grace" mentality, even if there is suffering like the sun destroying the earth, your state of mind can be very peaceful, and the dream state will not be the monotonous sandbar like before. , but happy reunion and goodness (of course, a bit exaggerated, but religious thing).
At the end of the clip, it returns to the real Jack, and then the picture cuts to the same mysterious light in the darkness as at the beginning. Obviously, these two places are also the words of God, of course, to praise the "grace" way of life through "no matter how dark life is, there is a ray of light that shines."
From these analysis, it is obvious that the atmosphere of the whole film is very life-affirming. In order to increase this feeling, in addition to the awesome bgm and those big scenes, there are also very life-affirming color grading (I don’t know how to describe this color grading, but I can only say this), backlighting (let the filmed The person or object has a texture that is both authentic and life-affirming), and the elevation angle (simulating the perspective of a child, allowing the audience to better capture the subtle "beauty" of life by lowering the audience's posture), etc.
—————————————————————
After writing the movie review, I finally concluded that "The Tree of Life" has the potential to become a full-score movie, but the reference to the existence of this "God" is still not obvious enough, so that many people are completely unaware when watching it. If Malick can mobilize the audition to make people better realize that those obscure clips are from God, maybe the movie will be more awesome.
View more about The Tree of Life reviews
