Love Everyone. Every Leaf. Every Ray Of Light.

Originally written on June 27th 2017 however changes were made to it now:

I have never watched a Malick film and didn’t know where to start. I’ve heard many things about his films and his directing. It always seemed like there was two extremes. One being that you would give your everything to him or you didn’t understand him, didn’t care to and/or never would. I figured The Tree Of Life was the one I had heard the most about so I figured that was a good enough place to begin.

There is something about the fluidity of how the film moved. It’s completely something that I can’t put into words. Something I’ve never seen before. From the actors, the cinematography, music, camera movement and editing; they all worked effortlessly together to create this delicate yet incredibly structured piece of art. It’s one of those movies where you could pause it and any frame could be in a museum. I feel like such a pretentious film snob to call a film a piece of art. It feels wrong to simply call this a movie. How douchey does that sound now? I’m beside myself at this point.

I have always tended to prefer films that make you think and provide you with newfound knowledge of something. Whether that be a new view on a subject, an understanding or it could be simply opening your eyes to something you never considered before. Giving time away from your own life to sit down and watch a collaborative work people have taken their own precious time to create should be an experience in itself. Too many times we and the creators and artists take for granted what a treasure film can be. So often we are given film after film that are carbon copies of each other. Often I feel deja vu watching a new film though I fully know I’ve never seen it before. I don’t mean to say watching a popcorn flick or a dumb comedy isn’t fun. That would be an utter lie. But to be able to sit down and watch something spellbinding and beautiful, why would you not?

I sit here now and believe there is nothing quite like The Tree Of Life. At least nothing I’ve experienced quite yet. Perhaps as I dive further into film and surrender myself to the creative minds of other directors I have somehow never encountered in my years of watching movies, I’ll stand corrected.