The Tree Of Life

[Graham Ritchie]

Has anyone here ever watched this film? the reason I ask is that it was a film print we ran at the cinema back in 17/8/11 but I could only ever watch small parts of it. What I did see, the film seemed a bit of a strange one, so never bothered to follow through with watching it until 11 years later on blu-ray last night. I had been putting this one of, until I was in the right frame of mind to watch it, basically giving it proper go.

"The Tree Of Life" is certainly an interesting movie to watch. I think its one of those films you need to watch a couple of times to get what its all about. Well that's my thinking anyway. It has taken me 11 years to finally watch it, but now give it more credit than I did in the past.

The special effects were not CGI, Terrence Malick insisted on that, so Douglas Trumbull did them the same way as he had done on 2001. The results are really amazing to watch. All up its an interesting film to watch, one that it does make you think afterwards a lot more about life in general.

I still have the movie posters, and I think the 35mm trailer floating around somewhere which is well done.

[Mitchell Dvoskin]

I saw Tree Of Life back when it first came out. It is the only Terrence Malick film that I do not care for. I felt it was pretentious and a triumph of style over substance.

[Michael O’Regan]

I saw it back when it came out. I loved it. Typical Malick, all about texture and the emotions that this evokes. Style over substance? You could say that. This doesn’t necessarily make it inferior.