A Second Look at TOL

There's so much crammed into Tree of Life that I'd honestly forgotten the light-thingy- the lumia- at the beginning of the movie. Honestly, I was with the people in the class that thought it was, at first, a womb, partly because of the colors, but also because of the whispered aspects of the character (Jack? brother? God?) speaking. "Brother, mother, it was they who led me to your door..."

But (and this is going to be hard to admit) maybe the lumia doesn't have to necessarily mean something symbolically. Maybe it's just there to be beautiful and thought-provoking and transcendent. As the light moves and interacts with itself, we're watching it and noting its beauty, but we're also listening really hard to the speaker's whispering. When's the last time you took such notice of someone's whispering as when you had little or no other sensory input? Maybe Malick wants us to pay attention to the speaker, but he's not just going to give us a black screen and some muttering, he's going to present something rare and beautiful because that's what's really going to get the audience thinking.

'Kay, that was painful. I want everything to be a symbol so that I can explain it all away and go to bed happy that I've cracked the secrets of Tree of Life forevermore. But life isn't that easy and neither is Tree. So on to something I might be able to explain better.

Names. Who cares if the characters have names or not? They can be anonymous. It doesn't make them any less individual, and it increases their impact by making them anyone. They could be anybody. They could be that family down the street. They could be yours or mine. Perhaps "Jack" only appeared because he's more of a central character, or perhaps it just ended up that way, or maybe his lone naming is supposed to make you aware that none of the other characters have names- why not? I'm beginning to come to the conclusion that this film wants us to ask questions, and not all of them are going to have answers.

I can't quite hack into the mother and father's roles as far as the ways of "nature" and "grace". I really like the concept, but I think either of the parents could be either of the virtues. The mother is kind and submissive and faithful, and the father is forceful and callous. The father goes through the motions of having faith- saying prayers, going to church, lighting a candle, and the mother through her voice overs seems to have a faith that's more... real? Genuine?

I'm sure there's some irony in that the "way of nature" characterized most by the father is represented through loud noise, planes, and technology like telephones, which in a normal conversation you wouldn't consider natural at all. Is that something significant? After all, the mother is the one floating and climbing trees and lying in the grass with her kids. What is natural? What is grace?

...

By the way, are they Catholic? "The nuns taught us there are two ways to go through life..." Nuns, i.e. Catholic school, would probably lead to a Catholic marriage... I don't know if that's important, because I get the feeling that in this film faith is faith is faith, but the thought occurred to me that while the parents are faithful, it's interesting that they may be Catholic because doesn't (and don't quote me) Catholicism have a lot of rigid rules on how to have faith and talk to God? Interestingly it's the mother that strays from this structure, especially when her son dies. Or is she straying?

I could go on but I think I'll end it with this.