Terrence Malick continues his quest to become an increasingly acquired taste, making up for the discrete decades between his second and third films with this hastily conceived latest offering.
Once more assembling an impressive cast, Malick follows a hollow shell of a man in an existential crisis, and here we have the biggest flaw, an unfortunate combination of subject and sensibility: whereas other masters like Scorsese take the otherworldly and make it grounded and relatable, Malick's strength is precisely the opposite, taking the ordinary and injecting it with grace and ethereal majesty that, at its best, can be a profound experience. At worst, it comes across as pretentious and arty for the sake of it. The combination of aloof character and aloof style makes this a hard one to relate to, and the stream-of-consciousness "structure" falls flat, when it soared in Tree of Life, a film grounded in a relatable, primal fear (the loss of a child/sibling).
Everything is left to rest on cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki's virtuoso shoulders, and were he in rookie in need of a show-reel, this would provide him with a never-ending list of shots any lower-level DPs would kill for. But he isn't, and he's worth better than this slim material, and even his great work experimenting with wide-angle-only lenses and the odd GoPro doesn't make this indispensable viewing. You can see a maturing of this style in The Revenant, or put to playful use in Birdman.
Here's hoping that Malick doesn't lose the plot and instead manages to reconnect with more human stories. Rumor has it that the upcoming - at the time of writing - Weightless has more immediacy. One can only hope.
Sad to say you can pass on this one.
Once more assembling an impressive cast, Malick follows a hollow shell of a man in an existential crisis, and here we have the biggest flaw, an unfortunate combination of subject and sensibility: whereas other masters like Scorsese take the otherworldly and make it grounded and relatable, Malick's strength is precisely the opposite, taking the ordinary and injecting it with grace and ethereal majesty that, at its best, can be a profound experience. At worst, it comes across as pretentious and arty for the sake of it. The combination of aloof character and aloof style makes this a hard one to relate to, and the stream-of-consciousness "structure" falls flat, when it soared in Tree of Life, a film grounded in a relatable, primal fear (the loss of a child/sibling).
Everything is left to rest on cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki's virtuoso shoulders, and were he in rookie in need of a show-reel, this would provide him with a never-ending list of shots any lower-level DPs would kill for. But he isn't, and he's worth better than this slim material, and even his great work experimenting with wide-angle-only lenses and the odd GoPro doesn't make this indispensable viewing. You can see a maturing of this style in The Revenant, or put to playful use in Birdman.
Here's hoping that Malick doesn't lose the plot and instead manages to reconnect with more human stories. Rumor has it that the upcoming - at the time of writing - Weightless has more immediacy. One can only hope.
Sad to say you can pass on this one.