MISCELLANY

Movie Review: The Tree of Life

Job 38:4-7 : 4 Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding. 5 Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it? 6 Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof; 7 When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

“There are two ways through life — the way of nature, and the way of grace. You have to choose which one you'll follow.” As the movie The Tree of Life begins, a mother reminisces on what a nun told her long ago. She then continues with a description of ‘grace’ that, if you know your Bible, you will recognize as has having some of the same phrase structures as Paul's great ‘Love’ chapter in I Corinthians 13. As she describes ‘grace,’ we are presented with images of her family, her husband and children. She finishes by saying “I will be true to you, whatever comes,” just as a telegram arrives telling her that her middle son has died.

The oldest son of this family as a grown man (played by Sean Pean) remembers these things, remembers his life growing up, remembers himself as a young boy (played by Hunter McCracken), remembers his brothers, remembers his mother (Jessica Chastain) and father (Brad Pitt). Although the son's memories and whispers form the core of the movie, they intertwine with the memories and whispers of his mother.

The Tree of Life is a movie rich with visual imagery. The camera loves architecture, loves the natural world, loves trees, loves faces, loves hands, loves people. The sound imagery is equally stunning, with a rich assortment of old and new classical pieces, along with an original score by Alexandre Desplat. Then there are the sounds of nature, ocean waves, crickets at night, whispers, voices. And although there is not an over abundance of dialogue, the words that are spoken never seem wasted.

The title “Tree of Life” of course has a double meaning. The most apparent meaning is a phrase to describe the course of our lives and the relationships we have with family. But there is also the Biblical meaning. In Genesis 2:9, both the ‘Tree of Life’ and the ‘Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil’ are introduced. It is when Adam and Eve eat the forbidden fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil that they are cast out of Garden of Eden, away from the Tree of Life. In essence, the Bible is the story of the journey back to the Tree of Life (or, as Joni Mitchell sang, “we've got to get ourselves back to the garden”).

Midway through the movie, the family attends a church service. The pastor is giving a sermon on the Biblical figure ‘Job.’ It happens to be the longest piece of dialogue (or monologue) in the entire movie and gives voice to the other theme of the movie, intertwining with the ‘grace versus nature’ theme introduced at the beginning. It is probably the oldest question in the Bible (literally, as many believe Job to be the Bible's oldest book): Why does God allow the righteous to suffer?

Echoes of that question occur throughout the movie. The mother asks, “Lord, why? Where were you? Did you know? Who are we to you? Answer me.” Later the son asks, “Where were you? You let a boy die. You'll let anything happen.”

In the middle of the sermon on Job, the pastor says, “We wither as the autumn grass, and, like a tree, are rooted up. Is there some fraud in the scheme of the universe? Is there nothing which is deathless, nothing which does not pass away?” As the pastor asks these questions, the movie seems to answer “No” when the camera moves up to a stain glass window with an image of Jesus Christ.

Sometimes the movie is startling. At one point, during an extended sequence on the creation of the universe and the earth, dinosaurs appear. What's nice is that there is no hint of evolution during the sequence, although I suppose if you believe in evolution, you wouldn't be shown anything to dispute your view. Adam and Eve do not appear, and we do not see the original ‘Tree of Life.’ And the dinosaurs? Their actions seem to reinforce the ‘grace versus nature’ theme.

I know I sometimes read more into a movie than is actually there, but there is no question that God is everywhere in The Tree of Life. And so is the Bible. When the son describes his bad behavior, he says, “What I want to do, I can't do. I do what I hate.” That is almost a direct quote from Romans 7:15, Paul's confession of his struggle on the road to Christian spiritual freedom in Romans 8.

And then there are the final words in the movie (and I'm not really giving anything away by quoting them). The mother says, “I give him to you. I give you my son.” Of course the first thought is that she is speaking to God about her lost son. But given the force of the movie, there is another view. It is God speaking to us.

The Tree of Life — 2011 — Brad Pitt, Sean Penn, Jessica Chastain, Hunter McCracken — Directed by Terrence Malick

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