The Tree of Life

This is a strange film.

We open to Mrs O’Brien receiving a letter that her son has died. She’s, understandably, upset. Her husband is upset. One of her other son’s is upset.
They all do narration to show they’re upset while the film shows some “artistic” images.

Then we reach the strange part.

The narration stops, any images regarding the family stop and the film starts showing a kaleidoscope of weird images.

A close up of the Sun, looking like something you would get on a screensaver
...planets... water...
... wtf?...
... sealife ... dinosaurs ... huh?...

This goes on a while. At least 10 solid minutes of random images, without explanation. It’s around this time that people started to give up and walk out of the cinema. I couldn’t blame them. It’s long enough to make you wonder if this is how the rest of the film is going to be, a series of random images, and boring enough to make that thought scare you away.

Then, just as suddenly as the randomness started, it goes away. That’s not to say the whole film isn’t desperately still trying to be “artistic” in every scene, but a story line comes back.

It’s the story of the family growing up, the mum, dad and three boys.

But after the mind rape of those 10 minutes it takes along time to get back into, and by the time you do it’s too little too late. The movie feels forced and drags out far too long.

Then we finish with some more random scenes – this time the equivalent of the “bow” at the end of a stage performance, with every actor in the film randomly walking around on a random beach.

Obviously fans of the film will call me an idiot. Tell me I didn’t “get it”. It’s “art”.

Yes, it’s weird enough so that it can be interpreted in various ways, cause debates about the “true” meanings, etc, but it’s a fine line between genius and insanity and I fear this film is often on the wrong side of that line.

This is a strange film.