The Tree of Life (Movie Review‪)‬

The Tree of Life [1] With only four other films to his credit in thirty-eight years, Terrence Malick--who trained at Harvard and Oxford as a philosopher, and counts college teaching stints and "bird-watching" among the things that have kept him busy in the large gaps between pictures--has made what will most likely be remembered (and very rightly so) as the crowning achievement of his modest yet resplendent career with the newly-released, Palme d'Or-winning The Tree of Life. That said, his latest opus is both the product and culmination of his spiritual exploration in those four previous triumphs, 1973's Badlands, 1978's Days of Heaven, 1998's The Thin Red Line, and 2005's The New World; as such, it is probably impossible to reflect fully on The Tree of Life without taking into consideration its predecessors. If, as Roger Ebert has said, this film is best understood as "a form of prayer," then the rest of the oeuvre should be understood as the catechism that frames this unique act of devotion.