The Tree of Life

Director & Writer	Terrence Malick
Actors	Brad Pitt, Sean Penn and Jessica Chastain
Oscar Nominations for	Best Picture, Best Director and Best Cinematography

“The Tree of Life” is the philosophical and biological picturesque by Terrence Malick.  I’ve watched this movie long back and thought to write about it knowing it received 3 Academy award nominations in categories Best picture, Best Director and Best Cinematography. The name, ‘Tree of life’ stands for the apple tree from the Bible. Adam and eve ate the forbidden fruit and made the human race immortal. The movie explores the evolution of life on the earth that leads us to teach the purpose of our presence.

The Tree Of Life

The movie protagonist, Jack recalls his childhood memories of innocence and nurturing by his parent.  Brad Pitt acts as his father.  He remained nostalgic about his childhood in Texas. He was brought up in the middle class family lived in the home surrounded by Natural beauties in Texas. Jack tries to find the true meaning for his life in this modern world. His thoughts travel from the origin of life of the earth.

He remembers, his mother(Jessica Chastain) explains, “There are two ways in life, the way of nature and the way of grace. Chose one way, other will follow.”  She elaborates, “Grace doesn’t try to please it, it accepts insults and injuries.  Nature only wants to please itself, to lord over others, to have its way.”  Life is a process of deciding which of these paths to follow.  Jack’s mother embodies the way of grace, while his father embodies the way of nature. His father(Brad Pitt) says, “One day, His son will become strong and his own man. He will be able to fight life on his own. He will fall down and weep and understand.”

Life of human being is much similar to other animal. The man endowed bigger brain. It is the only fact that made the huge different in his life style.

Continuous thoughts made Jack to trace the root of everything i.e. root of universe. Bing bangs Theory that explains the galaxies and system of start, comets in motion.  Explosion of large mass generated the solar system.

The beautiful blue planet Earth has an essence of life. The most intelligent species that prospered on the earth is Human being. The movie shows the evolution of life that ends up with man. Life started with aquatic creatures, having tentacles that keeping them moving in water.  These creatures struggled to come out of water. Few crawled further between the dense green forest and turbulent running rivers. Serpents treading on surface of earth formed different groups having different capabilities. Few light weight lives received wings to fly in the sky. Few bodies rapidly grew forming mammoth like animals which were dinosaurs, elephant. The species that couldn’t come out of water remained powerful in their habitat in the form of magnificent sharks and octopus.  There were also animals with four limbs that used to jump around the branches of trees. These monkeys later could able to slouch over back limbs and front limbs were required to different sort of work. Chimpanzees later evolved in human being. All this transformation took billions of years.  If you watch, every life pictured in the movie has sympathy for their own race, tried to protect themselves. Every life protected their kids from danger. So, every life is guided by morals.

The stratosphere helps the growth of life. All this is creation of God. He lives in every human being. Devils show there in dangers. Movie has pictured the rise of human being, who is most dominating and intelligent. Later this man turned predator of animal, flora and fauna on the planet. In twenty first century, life of human being is suffering with many problems. Basic needs of food, shelter are scantily availed. Man has build sky rocketing buildings to occupy excessive fellow beings. Future generations are prone to suffer problems like food safety, pollution, water scarcity. In such time God is the only who could help us, guide us.  HE should teach us the better way of life.