Figuring Out Families, Fathers, And Futures

Tree of Life, The (2011) | Review

Jacob Sahms

I never made it the whole way through The Thin Red Line or Amazing Grace (although I love the story). I thought The New World looked cool but I wondered about the theology presented in the colonization of America.And I might not have seen Terrence Malick's latest if I had known it was his before I signed up for it. But I have to grudgingly admit that the questions thatThe Tree of Life asks are questions anyone who has experienced tragedy, looked for hope, or encountered doubt has wrestled with at some point or another. And here, they're presented quite artfully.


This isn't Castaway but it's not the dialogue center of the universe, either. It might try to explain the universe, as scenes of the O'Brien family past and present (and future?) are interspersed between clips about the creation of the universe, the lives of the dinosaurs, the death of our solar system, and so many more epic scenes. Malick's vision for our story within a greater story is pretty spot on (even if you don't like the visuals or the theology), a sentiment I've seen best expressed by Rob Bell as "being between the trees."


One of those trees, the Tree of Life, gets its shine on here, as a mother (Jessica Chastain) and her son (Sean Penn, as an adult) reflect over the death of their son/brother and the impact it had on their lives. Of a greater impact is that of the father (Brad Pitt) who is obviously a sometimes-imperfect stand-in for God the Father, inflecting the conversation about how we look at God and the power our paternal dialogue jives or conflicts with our maternal model.


Wild, right? Well, the opening invitation, issued in the voiceover by Chastain's mother, sets the stage. I've excerpted it here, but it's meaty enough as it is: "There are two ways through life: the way of nature and the way of grace. Grace doesn't try to please itself. It accepts being slighted, disliked, forgotten. It accepts insults and injuries. Nature likes to lord over others. It finds reason to be unhappy when everything else is happy. And love is shining through all things. It taught us that no one who ever walks the way of grace comes to a bad end." Obviously, there's a sense that we're stuck with the boys between grace and nature, the mother and the father, but we realize that everyone is set up for that dilemma, to choose which one to follow.


I can accept that Malick is confusing, and that his biology-laden invasion of the straightforward plot (which seems to me to echo Kevin Costner's The War) sometimes muddies what we think is going on. But I find nature to be self-serving and without order, and Pitt's father certainly has order (maybe too much). It's instead as if we might look at the spirit of faith versus the spirit of religion (which may be the same argument, but I prefer titularity).


There's the Church with its rules and regulations, dominated by the Pharisee and the Sadducees who want their status quo to remain the same, and so hold down the power of religious correctness over those who are "lesser." And then there's the spirit of faith, whereby those who examine their hearts and seek after God, knowing that they are no better nor worse than anyone else, find God in their meekness, their mourning, their poorness of spirit.


But this is obviously a question of how we find God, and what it means to follow God. Can God be seen in nature, in family, in truth, in lies, in good and bad role models alike? Yes! And how can we know the true meaning of what God is and what God wants? By searching for that truth earnestly throughout our lives, never accepting the lies but pushing on to what God exists in through spirit and love. Because in the end, it's the love that remains, for The Tree of Life and for our lives.