Post by Himmapaan on Nov 23, 2011 12:08:53 GMT
Here's a summary:
"The Tree of Life is a movie written by a modern poet/philosopher that attempts pondering big questions. These questions are mostly personal, are filtered through the prism of his identity, and attempt to identify where he belongs in the scope of all existence. This may sound like the work of someone with too much time on his hands, but keep in mind that Terrence Malick is a true philosopher – a harvard graduate and professor at MIT. His method of coping with these questions came about through heavy observation, and what he observed and settled on is that everything in existence is formed by the paths of nature and grace. Nature is movement that everything in the observable universe has towards self preservation, and grace is the love and compassion and spiritual “something” that exists along side it. To prove that they shape everything, he really didn’t skip out on much. That is to say, his example begins with the creation of the universe and ends with the universe’s demise. Why go through so much trouble? Because, like any great philosopher, his goal is to back up his metaphysical thesis with evidence. And since Tree is a film, he uses appropriately poetic visuals the vast majority of the time to present it. So when you know what his definitions of grace and nature are, and observe where they fit into the images being shown, you start to notice juxtapositions like, “wow, the violent and awesome way the cosmos were constructed shows the true power of nature, yet the occasional compassion of prehistoric biology shows some proof of grace” all the way to, “the violence and power our parents may have shows nature in action, yet the love they also give might be an example of grace” The more one observes the film, the more it becomes clear that malick’s thematic observations carry weight in how they are consistently repeated on a macrocosmic and microcosmic level. What one takes away, in the end, is that life is all connected and even though self-preservation is written in our souls, we have the capability of choosing the path of love and compassion and it is this path that will be the most beneficial for mankind due to the fact that the path of nature is inherently more destructive."
From your summary, it does sound as though I will like it.
