Terrence Malick is a philosopher of our times who decided to share his comprehension of human nature through cinema.
I am not, by far, a philosopher, or a bookworm but if I would be asked to give a short definition of philosophy it would be something like:
Philosophy is the mother of all sciences, it observes the way nature works and mostly the way that human nature works. That's how we got all sciences that define our way of life and the way we look at things today: physics, mathematics, psychology, chemistry and others.
I can not pretend that I know what he really wanted to obtain with his work because I never had the privilege of meeting him, so the following is just a different take on his work. I apologize if I offend by any means his intent and his work.
Since 2011, he directed 4 movies:
In the first 3 movies he is displaying personal experiences, referring to his own take on life.
He was not trying to create something that would resemble an autobiography. His choice of subject has behind it utter generosity and sincerity. His goal is to speak about human nature and you can not go above a certain level of expression unless you use personal experiences and honest feelings.
In his movies he is showing us the most intimate moments of his life, in an effort to transmit his understanding of human nature. He is addressing our most basic feelings like love, belief, hate, empowerment.... and he is doing it amazingly with a combination of image, sounds and text.
His goal is not to share his experiences, he is just using them to position us in front of the mirror ….the mirror that we never want to look at. To me, it feels like we are not interested in his movies and we do not see their true value, just like we are more and more afraid to analyze our actions and behavior. It became easier to let ourselves analyzed and evaluated by artificial social entities. We are becoming more and more sheep and we are doing our best to be conform to someone else's expectations.
I guess it is a lot easier to think about what you are going to do tomorrow or to make plans and maybe do something expected of you, than to analyze the way you behaved in the past and challenge your own decisions.
You will never see a better expression of guilt than the one he expresses in To the Wonder.
The way he expresses the tragedy of family loss in the Tree of Life is very powerful.
I could say that Knight of Cups is all about what you decide to be and the choices you make to stay true to your decisions.
In Song to Song, it looks like Malick is not trying to get us to a basic state anymore. It's more like he's taking his balls out and he's putting them on the table. It is very clear that his feelings are not too warm for 99% of the Hollywood world and their movie academies. In 1978 he won the Oscar with Days of Heaven but right after that he realized that he is becoming a manipulated Hollywood product and he went underground (studying philosophy and teaching).
In Song to Song he is inviting us for the ride of a lifetime.
The movie speaks about two young people that come from somewhat stable, normal families, and they decide to go and meet life. They are lead by opportunity and chance and they have to face each of their choices in a Dante's Inferno way. All other characters are just for displaying purposes, the incarnations of evil, lost souls and hardheaded believers. The two main characters are heroes in the end because despite playing with the fire, their primal instincts take over and the values they were given by their mothers and fathers prevail.
You can see a shade of religion and faith in all his movies and by that I don't mean the priest from To the Wonder or other explicit scenes with churches. I mean the positive outcome of most dark situations. Somehow he lets you know that the sun rises even after the darkest night. At the same time I think that Mister Malick has a lot of faith in the human spirit and the human nature.
His movies will be a different experience for each of us. You just have to watch them with an open eye.
I am just amazed by how, at his age, he finds the means of a 20 year old to express feelings. The combination of music and image is just crazy.
Thank you Mister Malick, for you dedication, for your sincerity and for your genius.
P.S.
I decided to write this little article after I read the reviews for his latest movie: Song to Song.
The movie is a masterpiece that unfortunately did not receive the deserved attention. Many of us decide if we will watch a movie or not after reading some reviews and, unfortunately, everything that I found online is far from the true value of this movie. The problem is that every social media groupie decided to become a movie reviewer and if one of them has the guts to comment a movie, the rest will just copy -paste with a different note of “criticism”. You are not a true critic if you do not criticize.
Some critics say that his movies are not polished and that he often decides to change them on the rush.
This is true but they are missing two important elements that go above their ignorant heads
If anyone found any professional reviews, written by philosophers about Mister Malick, please share the links.
I hope with all my will that at least a few of the people reading this will go and watch his movies. I would recommend them in the order that they were released.
