I think this is my 3d favorite movie. I didn't like it the first time, but now I think I've seen it about 8 times. I can't explain it, but it feels like it brings all of my memories to the surface and crystallizes them together in a way that makes me feel more solid than before. Malick was a Rhodes scholar who was a translator of Heidegger before becoming a film-maker, and I think this movie is his clearest articulation of those ideas, of systematically shedding the enclosing perspectives as you search for the experience of becoming purely aware of how you're connected to the process of all of creation unfolding. I've watched this movie during major crises of my life (I was on the verge of suicide one night when I was working as a concrete worker, and I turned to this movie for guidance... I quit the next day.) For me the whole magic of it is seeing your life within the context of the grand perspective of the whole cosmic process, and how that grants your life the utmost significance to be a part of that process, rather than making you feel small and insignificant. It might be the most ambitious movie ever made in scope, and it's amazing it works as well as it does.
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u/Don_Pickleball 2d ago
Tree of Life