To the Wonder, 2012

Intentionally or unintentionally, the author has read almost all of Terrence Malick's works. After reading his debut novel "Bad Earth" yesterday, I was filled with emotion. None of Malick's films is not a shocking work, and none of them can be easily understood. People tend to like (and are more compelled to) stay at the level of putting Malick and his films in the visual category, thinking that all his films are incomparably good-looking; the experience is on a TV screen not much bigger than a face It was already extremely shocking, let alone on the big screen. There are also some people who think that Malick is so pretentious that nothing meaningful and valuable can be seen from his films. Obviously, these feelings are grossly derogatory and underestimated of Malik. Just imagine, a director who got a degree in philosophy from a university, once taught philosophy at the university, and then gradually transferred to the film industry, how can he make a good-looking film or not? How to make a popcorn blockbuster that you can understand without thinking? I'm afraid this is the real difficulty for him. In fact, whether it is beautiful photography or poetic lines, all of them serve the connotation and theme of the film, such as "Badlands", "Days of Heaven", "The Thin Red Line", " This is true of The Tree of Life, as is the recent Road to Wonderland. As always, Malick interprets the world in his eyes in his own way, and uses images to consistently express his views on people, life and love. This purity and dedication can be said to be unique.
Whether out of preference or understanding, "To Wonderland" is in my opinion Malick's best work. Of course, unsurprisingly, most people still don't understand what the film is about. Some people say that the theme of "To Wonderland" is not as grand as "The Tree of Life", or even a "miniature Tree of Life"; in my opinion, this must be due to a misunderstanding or partial reading of the film.
The Tree of Life can indeed be called grand. From the beginning of the universe, to the smallest psychological changes, all the things worth showing are carefully and meticulously shown by Malick. Roger Ebert, who recently passed away, commented on the film that in terms of visual daring, only "2001: A Space Odyssey" can be compared to any other film; and Kubrick lacks The spirituality of the people in Malick's films. However, despite daring to put dinosaurs, nebula, and little brother together reasonably, "The Tree of Life" undoubtedly lacks some structure. After all, there is no need to mention "dinosaurs and their compassion" as a proposition to discuss such a grand question as "life and love"; "To Wonderland" is completely sufficient.
Questions arise here: "To Wonderland" actually discusses life and love? If there were only two protagonists and heroines in the whole film, then it would not discuss life and love at all. However, there is also a priest in the film. Different from "The Tree of Life", this film does not use life in the scientific sense, but uses theology, which is somewhat opposite to science, to interpret it from another angle. The entire love experience of the hero and heroine, on the one hand, competes with the priest, and on the other hand ultimately belongs to the priest. As the priest said at the end of the film, Christ is both left and right, up and down, and front and back, either accompanying, leading, supervising, or supporting. The ubiquity of Christ actually implies that people should be charitable, tolerant, and sympathetic to those around them, just like the Father. In the end, it is not the combination of fists and feet that makes the heroine feel ashamed, but the hero's return to her arms, hoping to get her love again. Liberated from moral self-blame, the heroine finally understands what true love is, and finally obtains a fairyland-like sense of freedom. From the above analysis, the issues discussed in "To Wonderland" are actually not at all inferior to "The Tree of Life", but from another perspective, it reinforces Malick's views on life and love again; even, it has a unified framework. The former is more mellow and more nuanced than the unrestrained and freewheeling latter.
Whether you understand it or not, there is one thing that cannot be ignored and cannot be denied, that is, the emotional expression in "To Wonderland" feels smooth and smooth. The joy at the beginning of the relationship, the cracks in the relationship, the unhappy married life, the heroine's desire for freedom in the depression, and finally the separation that the two people who still love each other have to accept, will all lead to love. Those who have experienced it resonate. The handling of many turning points in the film is very mellow and old-fashioned, making the plot, which would have great ups and downs, appear very natural in the coordination and wrapping of music and scenery; Just a narration. Of course, the intensification of the poetic fluidity will inevitably lead to a dramatic weakening of the plot, so that the audience has to focus on using intuition to capture emotions (there is no way for those who are obsessed), which is also a Malick film. a major feature.
Throughout the six films directed by Malick, it is not difficult to find that they are clearly divided into three stages and levels, both in terms of time and logic: with "Bad Earth" and "Day in Heaven" as the first stage, the director Taking crime as the main line, the natural scenery runs through it to weaken and dilute the entire crime process, while emphasizing the innocence and loneliness of the perpetrators. Conquest is the key word, and human nature is discussed from conquest, which is mixed with very distinct anti-violence thoughts, which is a powerful mockery and negation of traditional values, and in essence, praises the value of kind and simple human nature; finally, with "The Tree of Life" " and "To the Wonderland" are the third stage, the director explores the meaning of life and the love between people by showing the subtle psychological changes between marriage and relationship between members of the family. In each stage, the latter is basically the enhancement and expansion of the former, and the overall style of the six films has remained largely the same. For example, Malick likes to explain the characters’ hearts directly with narration and music, thus eliminating the superficiality and ambiguity of the lines; another example is the highly consistent and most praised photography style; the characters are mostly in the “model” in the film. Status, performance is naturally realistic, but completely dependent on the needs of photography.
As the last film of Malick's final phase so far, "To Wonderland" is obviously of extraordinary significance. As for movies, he can already do whatever he wants without breaking the rules, but we can also see that his exploration of the most basic problems of human beings is far from over. what is love? What is the difference between love and love? Through metaphysical reflection on his own experience, Malick tells us that no matter what gender we are, if we only care about getting but don’t know how to give, if we only care about ourselves and don’t care about the life and death of others, then the so-called love will be small, narrow and not lasting after all, longing for love After all, people can only become more and more lonely and helpless. Only when we can understand and sympathize with each other's suffering, and when we can comfort each other without huddling in the space we set out for ourselves, does love really begin to emerge, and the light really comes.
At the end of the movie, the heroine suddenly looks back, and the Mont St. Michel, which once appeared in the title and left the hero and heroine's travel footprints, once again appeared at the end of the field of vision. After a period of heart-wrenching love, the church must no longer just mean promises and promises to the heroine; fairyland has finally appeared in front of her eyes, and the road to fairyland has been quietly paved.

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