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| A film of vastness |
A Terrence Malick film is a finely balanced thing. He deals in the decimals of delicacy, so ripples with or against the current, have effect. Some say his films are as metaphorically pretentious as the previous sentence. It really comes down to the individual and their place through their own perspective, in the wider universe... quite literally in this case.
With this film I'm a bit split. I liked it in parts, but it didn't leave the emotional imprint his previous films have (specifically The Thin Red Line & The New World). I acknowledge that it will probably go down as his definitive masterpiece for shear scale alone, but for me, those little ripples caused some aggravation.
It probably started with the 10 minute space sequence early on in the film. As beautiful as it was, the metaphorical significance tied into the narrative, actually pulled me out of it. I felt a bit restless as the Hubble slideshow played out. My next gripe was the frequency of the Malick montage. It's when the poet in the filmmaker takes over, and internal voices of his characters express themselves against naturally observed sequences. I usually quite like them, but there were a lot in this film. More than in his previous for sure. At times in my head, I was screaming for consecutive scenes of straight dialogue and action to play out, and celebrated when they did. The Sean Penn interludes for me were also a bit strange. His contribution is fairly minute, and is so deep, its hard to gauge a sense for him in connection to his past.
Whinging aside, this film does do a lot, very well. Because Malick operates with such sensitivity, you can't helped but be gripped at various points throughout the film. Brad Pitt and the kids in the cast are all excellent, and its shot with beauty no other can capture. Those reasons alone make it a film worth seeing, but be prepared to put to test, the cerebral pressures of your artistic mind.
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