The Tree Of Life – Best Picture Nominee

Posted by Charmaine Blake on Feb 8th, 2012 in Drama, Oscar Buzz | 0 comments

The Tree Of Life – Best Picture Nominee

The Tree Of Life is one of the many amazing drama movies that garnered a nomination under the Best Picture category in the Oscars. Terrence Malick is also nominated for Best Director for The Tree Of Life. This movie is garnering so much buzz since it revolves around the question about life and what it has to offer to everyone. The Tree Of Life is the fifth article that we will be examining in the list of Oscar nominees for this year. Here’s a movie review from Jim Tudor on The Tree Of Life:

“Majestic in scope while bewildering to audiences and film critics alike, “The Tree of Life” has finally arrived. As one who is open and encouraging in regard to films which explore the big questions of life, I have to admit that I am not feeling the bafflement or frustration that so many others are claiming about this one. Some have leveled the accusation that director Terrence Malick is overly obscure with his high-art impressionism. I respectfully beg to differ. Having had the pleasure of experiencing this film twice, I can say that “The Tree of Life” really tells you all that you need to know in its opening quotes and narration. That’s not to say there aren’t unanswered questions and lingering doubts – not by a longshot. But in this case, that’s part of the grand design. The film is built to be beautifully oblique, but not off-putting.

For the past several years, cinemaphiles have been anxiously awaiting this long brewing latest from the enigmatic filmmaker Malick. After a smattering wrongly rumored dates, notorious post-production tweakings (five editors are listed in the credits), and rumblings about dinosaurs being in the film, it’s fair to say that “The Tree of Life” has become nearly as enigmatic as its intensely reclusive creator.

Like most other such projects in the recent pantheon of notoriously delayed projects of an ultra personal nature (perhaps not the most apt examples, but the Guns & Roses album “Chinese Democracy” took over a decade to materialize, and The Flaming Lips’ homemade film “Christmas on Mars” took nearly that long), the mystique associated with the long wait only adds to the enigma. With the two musical examples I’ve cited, the actual completed work, once released, didn’t begin to live up to their inevitable hype. Upon hearing the news that Malick is addressing the meaning of life itself in this film, it’s fair to wonder if even a filmmaker as great as he may be over-reaching this time, as well.

Despite the fact that “The Tree of Life” is only Malick’s fifth film in just under forty years, (there’s also “Badlands” [1973], “Days of Heaven” [1978], “The Thin Red Line” [1998], and “The New World” [2005]), he nonetheless thoroughly and deservingly earned the reputation as one of the world’s foremost cinematic artists. His films are obtusely lyrical, and nearly free of plot. Yes, they contain some semblance of story (beautiful story!), and there are movie stars in the mix, but those things are wholly secondary to Malick’s defiantly poetic form, in which he’s perpetually exploring the truths of nature (both ugly and pleasing, the spiritual and physical) through jaw-dropping imagery, philosophical voice-overs, and his trademark shots of hands brushing through long stalks of grass.

Although we don’t know all that much about the tight-lipped Malick, it can be deduced that “The Tree of Life” is his most strikingly personal film to date. Centering on an average family (a whimsical mother [Jessica Chastain], a staunch disciplinarian but loving father [Brad Pitt], and their three young boys – the main one, Jack, played by young Hunter McCracken) based in Texas – not unlike Malick’s own childhood. The boys run and play and fight and goof off and get into trouble as such themes as sin, regret, savagery and the plague of human disconnection are explored through this pastiche of the everyday, the commonplace. (Even the Oedipus complex is addressed.) “

You can read the complete movie review from Twitchfilm

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Charmaine Blake loves movies, musical theater listening to music and taking pictures of anything that she finds interesting. She is a voracious reader and writer, and enjoys her time writing for New Movie Launches. Charmaine loves spending time with her pets and currently has a Siberian Husky, a toy poodle and a cat.