SPOILERS: As far as you can talk about “spoilers“ regarding “The Tree of Life” as it isn’t very narrative, this review may contain some. Additionally, I want to apologize beforehand for my possibly error-prone and much too simple English – this is my first attempt of an English text since I left school three years ago. Feel free to point out my mistakes – I am willing to learn.

When I first saw the trailer for “The Tree of Life”, I thought: “What the fuck is this movie about?” I watched the trailer again and still couldn’t tell what it might be about, although the pictures were really stunning and making me want to watch this movie as soon as it would be running in the cinemas.

Then I watched “The Tree of Life” at the cinema. Afterwards I was totally stunned and thought: “What the fuck is this movie about?”
Today I watched “The Tree of Life” a second time. And again I was totally stunned and thought: “What the fuck is this movie about?”

So I am as far as I was when I only knew the trailer: This movie looks awesome, but what has just happened? I can’t give you a final answer, but I will try to reflect about what I saw. And I guess one quote (that you might have already heard in the trailer) sums up the story pretty well: “There are two ways through life. The way of nature and the way of grace.” Jack, the movie’s protagonist, is seen as a grown up in New York (played by Sean Penn), shaped by his ambivalent and sometimes confusing childhood. He seems to be jazzed and lost in thought as his brother’s death has its anniversary. The daily routine is rushing past him while somehow he tries to find his brother in his memories (and to find back to the way of grace?).
Most time of the film is set in Jack’s childhood. An adorable scene shows in short impressions how he is born, doing his first steps, learning, how the family is growing as two more boys are born, and finally Jack is around the age of ten, I guess. Now I’m reverting to the quote some lines above: There is the boys’ mother (played by Jessica Chastain) who seems to represent the way of grace. She is a warm-hearted, patient and honest woman, always caring tenderly for her sons and compensating what they have to miss from their father. And there is their father (played by Brad Pitt), a failed musician who was in the navy, he represents the way of nature by being reckless and self-involved and trying to teach the kids to always look just for themselves. The father’s unholy presence creates a lot of tension and the boys, especially Jack, are intimidated by Daddy’s rude way to show his love. To me, there is no doubt that he loves his boys; the movie doesn’t condemn him to a pure dread. There are several scenes where he is playing and laughing with the children, and though he has a pretty rough and insensitive way of educating his boys, it seems he only wants the best for them. But in his blindness or scorn for the way of grace he poisons the family and puts a heavy load of pressure on the kids. There is a scene where the father is away for business reasons and all the pressure is taken from the boys who instantly run around the house, joyfully giggling.

This is the movie’s surface. An intimate family portrait with a typical tender mother and a typical authoritative father. But there are plenty silhouettes, reflections and shadows swirling on the surface that give a hint of the depth that may lie below. There is the always-present question to God, “Where are you?”, implied by frequent looks at the sky, by helpless prayers throughout the movie and extended to the largest scale if not partly answered by a scene that shows in impressive pictures the birth of the universe, of our galaxy, of earth and of life. God seems present in the large scale nature pictures, in the intimate pictures of the family – in nature as well as in grace. The church only occurs at the edge, most distinctly in a scene where a preacher talks about Job, which (to me) was used to underline some pantheistic suggestion the movie makes regarding God – but I don’t want to interpret too much, maybe as an atheist I don’t have too much sensitivity at finding God – especially as the movie itself does not simply try to find but to search Him.
A lot of other motives show up frequently. The intimacy is implied by putting the focus on the hands of the actors, by patiently paying attention to their mimics, to their gestures. “The Tree of Life” is a movie of gestures at all as most of the narrative moments aren’t spoken but shown, especially by gestures of grace – or sometimes nature. Trees occur all the time. Water is a reoccurring element, waves are crushing, founts seething and everything is in flow. It is a movie of gestures and impressions and there isn’t actually a narrative storyline, just suggestive excerpts out of life. The interweaving of grace and nature at all levels and with all elements.

That’s what makes it difficult to understand the movie, or better: to approach to its core – if there is one at all. Maybe it’s helpful if you don’t violently try to find a message but to understand “The Tree of Life” more as an experience. Let the movie stun you with its fantastic cinematography, capturing the roaring nature and the tender intimacy of life, accompanied by a great score that seems to be made just for those pictures. Immerse, and a lot of small gestures and impressions will give you a hand while watching this movie for getting a feeling what it might be about – without answering it. Without trying hard to be an intellectual and snobbishly artistic movie. Without beating the shit out of you with an obtrusive message all the time.

In many ways, “The Tree of Life” reminded me of “2001 – A Space Odyssey” (and not only because of its cosmic pictures or the classical music or because the reminiscence to “The Dawn of Man”, in “The Tree of Life” more “The Dawn of Life” itself) – and I remembered what Kubrick said about his masterpiece: He said that he wanted to ‘avoid "intellectual verbalization" and reach "the viewer's subconscious"’ (yeah, I got that from Wikipedia). And I guess that’s just how “The Tree of Life” works: It’s a visual and subtle touching journey. I’ve rarely experienced such a silent audience during a movie and I was rarely so out of it after leaving the cinema and wandering through the streets, not knowing what just happened. Yes, both times I’ve watched it.

Bottom line: I totally recommend this film. You don’t need to be a philosopher or egghead to get captured by it – I’m none of both and I totally enjoyed “The Tree of Life”. Yes, both times I’ve watched it.