"To the Wonder"

Film 1 (of 365)
To the Wonder
Screenshot from Terrence Malick's  To the Wonder
Terrence Malick's To the Wonder pushes the filmmaker's visual style further to abstract than it has ever been. For those of you unfamiliar with Malick's work he continues to push story and plot to the side in favor of powerfully emotional moving imagery. However, this is also a problem. The law of diminishing returns is alive and working in To the Wonder.  So much visual information is being poured over the viewer for such a long time (110 minutes) that I often found myself daydreaming.

To be fair, Malick's Tree of Life is much the same. For some reason I was touched and moved by that film so much more than I was by this one. In Tree of Life we are in a childhood memory and experiencing an almost spiritual exploration of the character. This means the cinematography was visually supporting the narrative. Granted, it was booed at Cannes. So speaking for myself Tree of Life was emotional and welcomed.

So why doesn't To the Wonder - despite tremendous similarities with Tree of Life - work as well? The visual style in this film does not support the narrative as it did in ToL.

Enough comparing and contrasting - there's no sense in it beyond what we've already explored. In all, I liked this film. It has its flaws but I can't deny its visual captivity over me. A Malick film is not meant to be watched it's meant to be experienced. It must wash over you. They are delicious and bitter and all the better for providing both.

If you're in need of a story, this isn't for you. But who needs story when you have Malick?

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