To the Wonder

Has there been a more visually engaging movie in past few years than The Tree of Life?

There have certainly been aesthetically compelling movies with better stories or more memorable individual moments – in fact, there were many films from just 2011 that I found more satisfying as overall experiences. That said, I’m hard pressed to find a film that felt as fully engaging the full way through just on the strength of images on screen. There will always gripes about the lack of narrative drive, the Sean Penn material, the ending, and most significantly the lengthy interlude involving the creation of the universe; yet even people I know who disliked the film on first viewing concede that its sweeping and luminous atmosphere makes it hard to resist every time it comes on TV.

That film was a much anticipated, long in the works passion project by Terrence Malick, cinema’s most famous recluse. The fact that his new project, To the Wonder, was finished so quickly thereafter feels almost jarring. In theory, Malick’s newfound productivity should be a welcome development; after seeing To the Wonder, I’m not so sure.

The plot itself is less than threadbare, tracking the ups and downs of a relationship between an Oklahoma contractor (Ben Affleck) and his European lover (Olga Kurylenko). There is some business involving Rachel McAdams as Affleck’s childhood friend and Javier Bardem as a conflicted priest, but let’s face it: it’s a Malick movie, so the camera is the real star here.

This is Malick’s third collaboration with cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, and, on a purely technical level, To the Wonder comes close to matching their landmark work on Tree of Life. The camera feels less like storytelling tool than a part of the ether, seemingly capable of being everywhere at once. For every scenic shot of the magic-hour on the Oklahoma countryside, there are equally stunning moments of natural light creeping though a window, or ripples moving through a pond; even a trip to a supermarket or a Sonic drive-thru has an ethereal beauty to it.

What’s makes this film unique in Malick’s filmography is that it’s the first to take place entirely within the present-day. All of Malick’s films have dealt with man’s relationship to the natural world, though almost always through the prism of a bygone era. In this case, he seems to be directly channeling a sense a growing unease and discordance, as the artificial sprawl of model homes and strip malls impede on the bison-laden plains of the old world. It isn’t hard to see this conflict as a mirror to the turmoil between Affleck and Kurylenko’s struggling couple.

Unfortunately this is where the film falls apart. Malick has never been interested in straight narratives, and I didn’t expect one from him this time. About halfway through To the Wonder, however, I kept thinking back to Tree of Life- how by that point we already had a clear sense of the characters and their environment. We already understood the regrets of Brad Pitt’s father figure, and how it influenced his strict parenting. We saw Jessica Chastain’s nurturing and graceful nature, and how it put her in opposition to her husband. We opened with the family experiencing the loss of a loved one, and felt how it impacted the proceedings. In this case, we aren’t given any of that. As a result, the film often feels like a beautifully shot but overlong gallery installation.

Ultimately this is a disservice to the actors, who much of the time seem as baffled by the material as we are (undoubtedly a result of Malick’s cleaving swaths of material in post-production). Affleck in particular seems to have gotten the short end of the stick; he is capable of strong work when given the right material, but he simply doesn’t have the natural presence of someone like Brad Pitt to carry long, wordless stretches of film. Kurylenko is left to carry much of the film, which she mostly does admirably, but her abilities only go so far as Malick loses his grip toward the end.

The only character that Malick seems to connect 100% with is Javier Bardem’s lonely, spiritually afflicted priest. His several short scenes carry more sympathy and weight than the countless shots of Olga Kurylenko waifishly prancing through fields of wheat. That in a nutshell is why To the Wonder comes up short – Malick has abandoned the deeply-felt connection that anchored Tree of Life for something seemingly more conceptual. As a result, for all of the visual splendor up on the screen, it occasionally comes close to self-parody.

Part of me feels like I would have responded more positively to this film had I not seen Shane Currth’s Upstream Color the night before. That film had an emotional and personal component that justified its enigmatic visual style. As a result, that film, like Tree of Life, practically demands multiple viewings to unpack everything. To the Wonder, I’m sad to say, is mostly a one-and-done deal.

Upstream Color

Shane Carruth’s Primer was one of the most authentic independent debut features of the past decade – it was also one of the best. Shot for less money than I have in my bank account, with Carruth performing almost all major duties behind (and in front of) the camera, it was nothing less than the craftiest and most cerebral time travel film since Chris Marker’s La Jetée. Nine years have passed since Primer, the amount of time that will turn an up-and-coming young talent to a reluctant auteur (see also Lynne Ramsey, Whit Stillman, Terrence Mallick), and consequently raise higher-than-average expectations for a follow-up.

That follow-up, Upstream Color, is a definitive expansion of Carruth’s still-growing ambitions and identity as a filmmaker. In many ways it feels like an intentional break from Primer – gone is the tightly woven puzzlebox narrative and rigid visual aesthetic, in its place a sprawling and aesthetically rich universe that showcases a more emotionally vulnerable side to its creator.

The basic premise involves Kris (Amy Seimetz), a young video editor whose life is thrown into disarray after being put under the influence of a mysterious, worm-infused drug. She comes to her senses to find her bank accounts emptied and her assets missing.  With no memory of the events, she finds herself inexplicably drawn to Jeff (Carruth), a fellow victim of the same scam. The two embark on a search for solace and understanding amidst a framework that includes hypnosis, pig-farming, and Walden Pond.

Despite the intrigue of the setup, Upstream Color is far less plot-oriented and less explicitly sci-fi than Primer, a development that may throw off fans who might have been expecting something more calculated and forceful. The few fantastic elements that are present, however, serve to enrich the wider themes of identity, loss, and connection. (In this sense Carruth’s closest contemporary is Another Earth and Sound of My Voice writer/producer Brit Marling, equally savvy in her incorporation of genre elements into weightier, more personal stories)

In a Q&A after our screening, Carruth was reluctant to discuss details on the production and budget, but it’s clear that his switch to digital cinematography has benefited his growing narrative ambitions. In retrospect, Primer was an appropriate title for his debut, as it was a textbook case in concise visual storytelling; a clean piece of work but often rigid in its formality (a necessity given the budget and the complexity of the story). The title Upstream Color likewise suggests an evolution in his directorial approach –free-floating, luxuriant, poetic, and quietly propulsive. The scope of the canvas has opened but the focus remains resolute on the details, conveying a true sense of intimacy with world at play.

There remains an inherent difficulty to convey in words the effects of Upstream Color, perhaps because most of its important segments involve little to no dialogue. Unlike Carruth’s debut, there won’t be charts on the internet to figure it out. One’s enjoyment will largely depend on their willingness to embrace its more abstract elements. Indeed, coming out of last night’s screening, I couldn’t sense that anyone knew exactly what to say about the work as a whole. All I can say definitively about Upstream Color at this point is that I can’t wait to see it again.