2012 - TO THE WONDER, Malick is out of ideas

This is an indefensible piece of pseudo artistic claptrap from Terrence Malick who it's starting to appear has seen better days and completely exhausted any ability to tell a story.

The film appears to be a story about a love triangle told almost without any dialog or character development.  Malick's chief interest in this film is to photogrqph scene after scene of pretty young women running through fields of hay with the sun glistening into the camera lens.

Malick has made a few good films but since his return from his extended 10 year break his films have been lacking particularly in story content.  Malick's chief interest seems to be in photographing stuff without even remotely attempting to tie it together.  Malick's best film in the second half of his career was The Thin Red Line, but even that suffered from a meandering story structure.   It's been kind of downhill ever since with indulgent films like The Tree of Life and this so called film.

This kind of fim is what happens when you let a pretentious director run amok with a budget.  Commercial  and particularly artistic failure on a large scale.  No one was going to get their money back on this one.

113 minutes

1978 - DAYS OF HEAVEN, Terrence Malick's beautiful film and it's at a reasonable length

Malick's film about a love triangle in the early 1900's is one of the best looking films ever photographed.  The film runs about and hour and a half and believe me a short Terrence Malick film are is a lot easier to take than a long Terrence Malick film.

 

Slight criticism, for all the care brought to the look of the film the actors have very contemporary haircuts and looks.  Don't know if this was intentional or just sloppy.

Still the film looks stunning particularly the scenes of the mansion standing alone on the prairie.

It's probably best to watch this in the most optimal conditions possible, a good TV with a large screen and a high quality copy of the film since I doubt it will be seen on a large screen anytime soon.

94 minutes, written by Terrence Malick.

2011 - THE TREE OF LIFE, very artistic and very suspect as entertainment

This film is about the birth of the universe and one person's place in it, maybe.

Terrance Malick's The Tree of Life wants to cover it all and I mean all.  The film has an extended sequence about the creation of the universe, the earth and life itself.  You could probably cut out most of this film and have a pretty good little short about evolution although no one in Texas where Malick grew up would ever screen it.

Where the film starts to get dicey is when Malick moves to the story of a boy growing up in Waco, Texas.  A viewer is going to have to really work to see the connection between the evolution sequence and the life of the boy with the stern father and a loving mother, if there is a connection.  The film has one of those obscure endings that you could always count on in just about any art house film during the 1960's or 70's particularly the ones from Europe.

Either a very great work of art of a pretentious bore from a navel gazing filmmaker, one thing is for certain we are a very long way from Badlands, Malick's first film. 

138 minutes.

1973 - BADLANDS, Terrence Malick's stunning feature film debut.

Badlands is the film you would get if it have been directed by John Ford and was about a sociopathic mass murderer who killed people against magnificent prairie settings. 

The film has pretty spectacular photography juxtaposed with the story of a serial killer and his clueless teenage girlfriend racing around the central plains, in this case Colorado.  A young Martin Sheen creepily channeling the persona of his notorious son Charlie, is the psycho killer, who thinks he's a real wheeler dealer.  Sissy Spacek has a difficult role as his clueless teenage girlfriend who is way in over her head but doesn't really realize it.  They are both very good.

Badlands mad killer runs around the central plains and he looks and acts just like one of the local yokels.  A loser, he clearly enjoys his serial murder fame which is the high point in his life,

A stunning film.

95 minutes