To be clear I saw the 90 min Life’s Journey version with the Cate Blanchett (The Lord of the Ringses) voice over. I couldn’t get my hands on the shorter 40 min
Brad Pitt (Allied) narrated version
to compare which is too bad because I would’ve liked to have seen the
differences. Oh well.
Anyway, the documentary bits like a volcano erupting, weird
ass sea life going about its weird ass business and all of that is stunning to
behold. Not only are the events
fascinating to witness and give you a glimpse of the world beyond your TV but
they’re also beautifully photographed. At
times everything can be so vibrant and awe-inspiring but at others subdued and
even off-putting. The varied mixture of images
gives off an equally varied mixture of feelings.
Along with nature there are scenes of modern people from
around the world except it’s very different from everything else. It’s more like a home movie because it’s in
standard definition, the camera is jittery and the people appear to be real and
not actors. They’re doing all sorts of
stuff like celebrating in the street, holding a wedding, wandering, performing
rituals, etc. I’m not sure what Malick
was going for with these sections which are sprinkled throughout. I would understand more if it came at the
end, like now humans are on earth and everything is still chaotic and strange but
in a totally different way than before. But
inserting these vignettes every so often is puzzling. It’s not nice to look at and seems to paint
humans in not the most flattering light.
The space parts are fine but I think most of it is fake and
some of it isn’t that attractive. I’ll
lump the couple of primeval animals in here too with that remark. It’s silly looking shit that the movie didn’t
necessarily need.
The score? It’s kinda
forgettable but that’s fitting because it’s there to support the visuals and
not fight for your attention.
For me the best scenes are the ones with prehistoric
man. Supposedly this was filmed back in
the 70’s but I don’t buy that. It
matches too well with the rest of the footage and is in the same style Malick
has been using since The Tree of Life
(everything before that, including The
New World which immediately preceded it, had relatively more focused and
restrained cinematography). But this is
the closest we get to any sort of story where we hang out with aboriginals
hunting, gathering, traveling, laughing, fighting and marveling at the world
around them. It’s incredibly touching
and I wish the entire film was about this.
It feels like real cavemen and not people in ape suits like in 2001 (as much as I adore that picture)
or an action adventure expedition like Quest
for Fire or some god awful trash like 10,000
BC. It’s gorgeously elemental and
really perfect for Malick because he’s big on pure emotion and down on dialogue
anyway. I wanted to see what our ancient
ancestors were gonna do next but it’s such a small part of the movie and that’s
extremely unfortunate.
I don’t think I can recommend this based on the early man
parts alone. Sure the nature stuff is
cool too but the movie doesn’t know what it wants to be. All life on earth isn’t portrayed in some
manner either. It’s mostly marine life
so that’s off kilter as well. Plus it’s
impossible to get past the pretentious obnoxious Cate Blanchett narration where
she cries out shit like “mother, what do I love when I love you?” I guess it’s more of a free form film.
It’s tough. I enjoyed
parts of it and that makes me wonder if I might like the shorter version
better. Even though this is sort of an amorphous
blob of a picture I’d still take it over Song to Song.
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