Malick qua Kubrick: 2011, A Life Odyssey – The Tree of Life, by Seth Lachterman
Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life
Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?
Tell Me, if you have understanding.
Who determined its measurements?
Surely you know!
Or who stretched the line upon it?
To what were its foundations fastened?
Or who laid its cornerstone,
When the morning stars sang together,
And all the sons of God shouted for joy?
Job 38:4-7
Film as Being
The Tree of Life opens with these questionings from the Book of Job, and in the course of nearly two and a half hours, questions and enigmas pass by, compelling the viewer to frame a response to this very metaphysical film. For those who expect linear and coherent drama, piecing the film’s parts together will ultimately be a dissatisfying exercise. Nothing resolves absolutely, leaving a viewer as witness to the mysteries of death and eternity, with a nagging ambivalence. Perhaps as a rejoinder to Job, Yeats’s gravestone inscription should precede the film’s end credits:
Cast a cold eye
On life, on death.
Horseman, pass by!

