“The Tree of Life”
A Philosophical Film Review
It is rare that an American movie addresses philosophical themes with stunning visuals and a thoughtful macroscopic lens. “Tree of Life” (2011, directed by Terrence Malick, starring Jessica Chastain, Brad Pitt, and Sean Penn) does just that. In addition to stunning visuals representing the natural history of life on Earth, we see the microcosm of an American family in the 1950’s forced to ask philosophical questions about the nature of life, love and compassion. The film revolves around the death of a son, the death of a brother, and the questions raised about the benevolence of existence. What makes the movie particularly moving is the degree to which the history of life, its extinctions and its struggles to survive, are portrayed with a humanity and compassion that few natural history films or documentaries give such a subject. One actually feels for the dinosaurs as they go extinct. The idea that the purpose of life is one of universal compassion is given serious consideration, as is its contrasting position, the idea that one cannot live life morally or one will be trampled. Good people who desire to believe the former position have to grapple with the inevitable disappointments attending a benign philosophy of life, and yet they still maintain their stance with dignity and grace.
The movie looks at a seemingly idyllic life, in many ways a truly idyllic life, through the eyes of the children. The innocence of the children is buttressed by the compassionate beauty of their mother, who teaches the children to love all people, and all living things. Nature for her is a wide circle of compassion blessed by God. Profoundly religious, she goes beyond conventional formal religion to a form of spirituality that encourages wonder and curiosity, along with a childlike innocence that she shares with her children. The father is a good man, a talented musician and inventor, but he sees the world as a competitive place in which the good suffer and the ruthless triumph. He attempts to discourage the children from listening to their mother’s view of the world. Eventually, through persistence and emotional trauma, the children begin to adopt the view of their father. They reject the way of their mother and become bullies who devalue life, human, plant and animal. The father is never portrayed as an evil man, but as someone who was stolen from and cheated. He felt strongly that the world could not be lived by those who were weak or overly compassionate. He realizes throughout the film the harm he is doing but he continues to believe that he is acting out of necessity.
The film is a series of spectacular images and dialogues that are often segmented and choppy. This is a deliberate film style since the entire film is a memory and somewhat of a projection. The Nature scenes are spectacular, and reflect the innocence of childhood in the fifties. Yet, they are much more. They represent a macrocosmic view of life in which human beings are imbedded in a much bigger picture of ecological relationships. However, even more so, the Nature scenes provide the visual backdrop of the central philosophical problem of the movie; “Why should we be good when there is so much seeming cruelty in Nature?” Human beings are asked by the higher moral philosophies to widen their circle of compassion to all living creatures, yet all around them species go extinct. The family’s mother lives such a life of compassion, and yet she is weak before a stronger father who represents a view of Nature predicated on the need to conquer or be conquered. The children begin to lose their innocence as they see cruelty as a stronger force than love. Whereas they once loved the world around them, its children, animals, plants, and beauty, they soon turn to bullying and the killing of small animals. There is tragedy in this turn of events, one made more tragic by the fact that it never was necessary, that life would have been so much better had the desire to love and be loved been nurtured. Eventually, death and poverty enters the picture as the idyllic childhood comes to an end and never returns.
The genius of the film is that it is not a tragedy in the end. The philosophical questions are never fully resolved, but there is reconciliation. The father is never portrayed as a villain. He is someone who eventually sees the beauty of life once again. He is capable of redemption, and so is the family. Compassion and the beauty of life triumph in the end of the movie. Even death does not destroy the beauty of existence. The cycle of the seasons and the flow of life continue to show that all is not cruelty, that compassion is not simply for the weak ready for extinction but a vital part of life. Much of the film deals with religious narratives, and questions about the goodness of God. There are scenes apparently played out in Heaven, but they are indicative of religious existentialism more than the portrayal of religious certainty. The same might also be said about the much heralded scenes involving the natural history of life on Earth. These are scenes played out from a human perspective. The film is an exercise in benevolent existentialism, the notion that a life lived for compassion is as much about the self as it is about the world around oneself.
“Tree of Life” can be criticized as somewhat disjointed and unsatisfying to those who want a straight plot. In addition, there are times when it appears to be two movies. I believe that this was the intent, to present us with two movies and a disjointed set of memories from decades after the events that can only be reconciled by a reflecting son who can view life through philosophy. He can imagine Nature, and imagine Heaven, but only through self-reflection can he really make peace with his own life. I believe that this movie is a “must see” for philosophers and the philosophically inclined and those who want a visual feast. A definite PLUS!
CHistrue
