Terrence Malick’s films have progressively become more Man v. Nature. Maybe not “versus”, but Man separate from Nature. Badlands is mostly plot-driven, though the two outlaws spend a lot of the film forgoing roads to drive across the plains. Days of Heaven tells the tale of human jealousy and betrayal among field workers seeking to tame Nature: stalks of wheat, grass fires, hay balers. The Thin Red Line and The New World both have Man as a destructive force within nature; warfare, the discovery of America (and we all know how that turned out for the pristine countryside of the continent). This, his latest film and winner of the Palme D’Or, seems both least like him and at the same time the film that he’s clearly been leading up to.
The film opens with a mother receiving a telegram, delivering the news that her 19-year old son has died. In grief, she asks God “where were you”? At this point, the film cuts….. to the beginning of time. The birth of stars, galaxies, planets. Earth’s volcanic beginnings, water, proteins, cells splitting, jellyfish to fish to dinosaurs to extinction event to the birth of your son. Short answer from God: “I’ve been pretty fucking busy, is where I’ve been.”
Here the film finds its core: the most immensely detailed look at a childhood I think I’ve seen on film. So many little moments, beautifully captured with camera and actor (the child actors are fantastic), of young boys in 1940s Waco, TX. Fear of father, love of mother, brotherly trust and betrayal, violent streaks. Malick captures all this detail with a fluid camera, flowing around its subjects like air or water around an object, indifferent to what it is, what it feels, what put it there, why.
And here is the point, I believe. This core story of youth on its own would be a completely different movie. But placing before it the complete history of time places Man, for maybe the first time in a Malick film, as a part of Nature. The events of a young boy’s life are no different than the events of an asteroid striking a planet. That’s the starting point. The film’s stated themes are those of nature and grace. What we’re shown is Nature: birth of the cosmos to death of a human. But Malick knows his audience is one that knows Grace. We’re shown natural events, but we can’t look at a boy hating his father or seeking forgiveness from a younger brother through such benign eyes. We even see a dinosaur’s decision to spare another potential meal its life or not, in some part, as a decision between mercy and viciousness in the same film. What the universe gives us is Nature. What we give it back is Grace.
It’s not perfect. The last 20 minutes meander a lot even for Malick, and don’t do much to bring the film home. But it’s ambitious to make a film about everything. It’s clearly extremely personal to Malick, and he has a vision. It’s not a film you put in on a Saturday for a watch; it’s an expression on celluloid, and it’s not for everyone I’m sure. He swings and misses on more than a few occasions, but the fact that he’s swinging for such a seemingly impossible target gives me reason to excuse a lot of it.
