To the Wonder (Terrence Malick)

[Stay Puft]

TO THE WONDER
Director: Terrence Malick

IMDb page (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1595656/)

http://i.imgur.com/WL0KbGB.jpg

[NickGlass]

Pretty much encompasses half of what Malick does best (sublime imagery and ineffable emotion, here via portrait of cultural assimilation and fading of love) and half of what he's made into self-parody (anything involving McAdams and Bardem).

[dreamdead]

Got tickets for this for next Friday. The recent Reverse Shot review (http://reverseshot.com/article/wonder)excites me.

[ThePlashyBubbler]

Coming to Pittsburgh in two weeks, can't wait.

[ledfloyd]

Coming to Pittsburgh in two weeks, can't wait.
The Manor?

[ThePlashyBubbler]

The Manor?

Harris.

Upstream Color also playing Melwood Screening room 12th-15th.

[ledfloyd]

Harris.

Upstream Color also playing Melwood Screening room 12th-15th.
Nice, I don't know if I'll be able to make it down for Upstream Color, but I'll probably make the trip for To the Wonder. Even if the Harris isn't my favorite theater.

[plain]

Labuza and Glenn Heath Jr for Slant both loved it, I can't fucking wait.

[EyesWideOpen]

This is gonna be On Demand starting this friday. That's pretty cool.

[Henry Gale]

This is gonna be On Demand starting this friday. That's pretty cool.

Really? That actually frustrates me a bit. Between this, Place Beyond the Pines and Trance all opening, I might actually end up opting to watch the new Malick at home. The other two are playing fairly close to me starting this Friday, while Wonder isn't released here until a week or two later. But I'd still much rather see this on the big screen.

I've just been waiting for this long enough to jump at whatever chance I have to see it.

[Henry Gale]

Also, here's Ebert's review (http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/to-the-wonder-2013) for this, the final one he ever wrote.

It's finally hitting me how much I'm going to miss these sorts of thoughts from him.

[ledfloyd]

yeah, i don't know if i'm going to be able to wait until next weekend.

[plain]

Never thought I'd say it, but Malick has managed to craft a film and a world entirely devoid of emotion and lyrical charge. Outside of Kurylenko, the flimsy and often impenetrable narrative trajectory never finds its ground; the likes of Affleck, Bardem, and McAdams are then deemed insignificant (it's mostly their role as ciphers) in this depiction of modern isolation and love lost. I'll still need to take another look at the film, but as of now it registers as a pretty stagnant and empty experience.

Skinny Pete though, guys.

[ledfloyd]

I'm kind of confused by people who loved previous Malick films and didn't care for this. To me, it isn't any different. Every bit as transcendent as The New World and The Tree of Life.

[Boner M]

To me, it isn't any different.
And that's the problem.

[ledfloyd]

Not to single out plain, but "devoid of emotion and lyrical charge," would seem to imply that there is something different about To the Wonder. Unless that's a descriptor you would apply to his previous films, and in that case I completely understand being unmoved by it. It's as if people are sensing a shift between TTOL and TTW that I fail to perceive.

[EyesWideOpen]

I'm kind of confused by people who loved previous Malick films and didn't care for this. To me, it isn't any different. Every bit as transcendent as The New World and The Tree of Life.

What about people who loved previous Malick films except for The Tree of Life and thought this one was pretty good?

[ledfloyd]

What about people who loved previous Malick films except for The Tree of Life and thought this one was pretty good?
Haha, you make sense to me.

[Ezee E]

And that's the problem.

Why is it a problem now, but wasn't in Tree of Life?

[Boner M]

Why is it a problem now, but wasn't in Tree of Life?
ToL may have employed the same stylistic tics, but they were taken to new extremes, and the film was a marked departure for him in scope, ambition and subject matter (aside from his broad preoccupations with nature and spirituality). There's a reason it was instantly hailed as a landmark film, while The New World wasn't.

I wrote this on TtW after seeing it at TIFF last year:


...this is the first Malick film that feels like a minor work, like ToL without scope; w/ that film's language - so perfect for expressing childhood reminiscence - here applied to the experiences of adults who, from all evidence, are overgrown children. I was totally on board with the first half or so, but from thereon I couldn't shake the sense that the reels could've been randomised to no great loss, something I've never sensed with his prior films, which all feel intuitively cohesive and even beautifully structured, for all their ellipses and fragmentation.

I guess 8:30am screening in a festival setting isn't the best place for opinion formation, but I don't have much desire to revisit this one.

[plain]

I just couldn't connect to this one, and I would agree with you in some regard, as I feel it does come across as a sort of "Malick's greatest hits" to me; don't get me wrong -- this is intended to be a wholly emotional work (his most personal and cynical one could argue), but I never felt in tune with the rhythms and tones, and really did find it quite laborious in stretches. But I do look forward to revisiting it in the next week or so.

[Ezee E]

ToL may have employed the same stylistic tics, but they were taken to new extremes, and the film was a marked departure for him in scope, ambition and subject matter (aside from his broad preoccupations with nature and spirituality). There's a reason it was instantly hailed as a landmark film, while The New World wasn't.

I wrote this on TtW after seeing it at TIFF last year:



I guess 8:30am screening in a festival setting isn't the best place for opinion formation, but I don't have much desire to revisit this one.

That makes sense. Especially with The New World's setting and the beginning/end for Tree of Life. Maybe there's a reason that Malick takes 10 years with each film he does? I'll check this out, just because you see Malick on the big screen no matter the case.

8:30 AM screenings for anything are kind of lame. And when you pile on 3-4 movies afterwards, I've always felt them all to kind of flow together.

[Watashi]

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l3dkkeCT2g1qc073co1_400 .gif

I liked it all overall.

[transmogrifier]

I don't think I'll bother.

[ledfloyd]

Some thoughts on the film: http://tongue-tiedlightning.blogspot.com/2013/04/to-wonder-terrence-malick-2013.html

[dreamdead]

Since the film was filmed in our current hometown, Bartlesville had a premiere event at a local community theater. Malick's wife, Alexandra, came out on stage and introduced the film. Sorry we couldn't get a clearer picture; we expected a non-important person to introduce the feature.

http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/zz230/z165600/Malick/Malick.jpg

'Twas cool to see restaurants that we've eaten at on screen (we've totally dined at that Sonic).

Anyway. Still forming thoughts.

During post-screening discussion, we considered how Marina's Ukranian friend in the Oklahoma scenes could be perceived as a figment of her imagination, a way to let out her worst tendencies for a while (as Marina later states, she feels like two people).

It's also interesting to consider the early section of the film as Marina and Neil climb the stairs in Mont Saint-Michel, which is matched with the "...to the wonder" line, and to see that visual echo in Marina's hesitation with the Econo Lodge stairs. As though there's an, albeit, ephemeral wonder in this sexual encounter as well.

Really the only misstep for us was the utterly random visual of the underwater turtles. That feeds into the Malick accusations. Otherwise, though, it felt like a bewitching visual tone poem. Not his best (though I'd testify that the first five films are all essentially perfect), but solid nonetheless.

[ledfloyd]

The sea turtle is so completely out of place that I watched that bit three or four times trying to figure out what he was trying to say with it.

[Watashi]

It's weird that most of the reviews single out Javier Bardem as the weak spot but I found his character and his thematic purpose the most interesting.

Also, I'm so glad they decided to release this On Demand. I felt like if I saw this in theaters, it would be Tree of Life all over again. Thanks God I can focus on just the movie this way.

[ciaoelor]

Also, I'm so glad they decided to release this On Demand. I felt like if I saw this in theaters, it would be Tree of Life all over again. Thank God I can focus on just the movie this way.

Care to explain...

[Watashi]

Care to explain...

People complaining underneath their breath, the walkouts, the fidgety couples thinking this would be a Ben Affleck rom-com.

[Ezee E]

People complaining underneath their breath, the walkouts, the fidgety couples thinking this would be a Ben Affleck rom-com.

Go to the right theatre?

[EyesWideOpen]

Go to the right theatre?

The Tree of Life only played at one theater near me and it was a discount theater. The theater was full of families expecting a typical Brad Pitt film. Almost half the audience had walked out by the halfway point and people were talking almost the whole time.

[dreamdead]

Yeah, I found Bardem's story fascinatingly woven into the story. I think some critics view the film as Neil's story and since Bardem's so peripheral to Neil, the character feels tacked-on. But within the context of Marina's narrative (and I think the film is really her narrative and not the other way around), I think Bardem serves as a valuable counterpoint. The closing voiceover he gives, to me, brings the whole film's motifs full circle, where there's the submission to a perceived greater good even if Marina, Neil, and McAdam's character extradite themselves from their confines all the same.

Bardem's the only one who stays, in part because he's the only one to receive positive reinforcement from the community despite his fears.

[Ezee E]

The Tree of Life only played at one theater near me and it was a discount theater. The theater was full of families expecting a typical Brad Pitt film. Almost half the audience had walked out by the halfway point and people were talking almost the whole time.

But Wats lives in LA

[Winston*]

But Wats lives in LA

I saw it at a film festival opening night and there was still a palpably negative reaction from the a lot of the audience. Particularly noticeable during the ending.

[Watashi]

But Wats lives in LA

Your point?

[ledfloyd]

The closing voiceover he gives, to me, brings the whole film's motifs full circle, where there's the submission to a perceived greater good even if Marina, Neil, and McAdam's character extradite themselves from their confines all the same.
Yeah, that is definitely when his character clicked into place for me. But even going back and watching it a second time, his scenes leading up to that point still seem somewhat superfluous, particularly the one with the janitor.

Also, these character names weren't mentioned in the film were they?

[Derek]

Your point?

You're going to the wrong theaters if people are audibly grunting and commenting throughout a Malick film. I saw ToL twice in LA theaters and aside from the unavoidable walkouts, people kept their traps shut the whole time.

[Pop Trash]

You're going to the wrong theaters if people are audibly grunting and commenting throughout a Malick film. I saw ToL twice in LA theaters and aside from the unavoidable walkouts, people kept their traps shut the whole time.

Yeah there's enough wannabe filmmakers there that I would think watching a Malick film would be sacrosanct even if you don't like it.

[plain]

Also, these character names weren't mentioned in the film were they?

Right, I don't think they're mentioned.

[dreamdead]

Right, I don't think they're mentioned.

Just Tatiana, Olga's daughter (and the actress's real name besides). In that sense, the connections with Murnau's Sunrise, albeit inverted, become more pronounced; the film is essentially A Song of Four Humans. They are the Man, the Woman, the Priest, and the Woman from Another Country.

[Boner M]

I saw it at a film festival opening night and there was still a palpably negative reaction from the a lot of the audience. Particularly noticeable during the ending.
Same here, though that's been the case with any festival screening for a (even vaguely) challenging film, with a packed audience and no filmmaker in attendance.

[Ivan Drago]

I don't know what's harder to figure out: this movie, or how I liked Spring Breakers more than this.

[TGM]

I don't know what's harder to figure out: this movie, or how I liked Spring Breakers more than this.

Well, Spring Breakers was a better movie, so...

[wigwam]

:|

[Raiders]

Not only a masterpiece on par with his 70s work, but most likely his best film with the mixture of instinct, inspiration and technical mastery besting his overthought/overwrought theses-hindered last 3 films (even though New World completely works for me; the others don't, to say the least). Recently I read Flaubert's Salammbo and found it to be a repository of every shitty idea, urge and instinct his artistry was buried beneath and that when he was purged of all of that, he had nowhere to go but perfection and thus we have Sentimental Education. So it is with Malick after Tree of Life! I said to my wife beforehand that I was ready to like it simply because it was about relationships rather than Tree's childhood-is-magic/mommy-was-amazing/daddy-was-a-scawey-wawey nitwit parameters and the loose, flowing, accumulative details of relationships' irrational events, shapes, and decay work to recover all the lost goodwill of the earlier film. Most importantly, the photography is thematically as expansive and deep, as fleeting and flittering, as sleek, as warm, as aestheticizing and anesthetizing as the subject being captured. I loved the outdoor pool and the hands on the warm windows, I laughed at and loved the Italian friend, nearly cried at the prison, and just buzzed with love from the first image until the end. An amazing film.

This is an admirable paragraph, though its reduction of The Three of Life to something so totally not what I found it to be leaves me concerned about what this film actually will be.

It is at home recorded off OnDemand. Hope to watch it tomorrow.

[Pop Trash]

Check out my new review of The Shining ya'll!

"childhood-is-magic/mommy-was-a-nitwit/daddy-was-scawey-wawey"

[Milky Joe]

Not only a masterpiece on par with his 70s work, but most likely his best film with the mixture of instinct, inspiration and technical mastery besting his overthought/overwrought theses-hindered last 3 films (even though New World completely works for me; the others don't, to say the least). Recently I read Flaubert's Salammbo and found it to be a repository of every shitty idea, urge and instinct his artistry was buried beneath and that when he was purged of all of that, he had nowhere to go but perfection and thus we have Sentimental Education. So it is with Malick after Tree of Life! I said to my wife beforehand that I was ready to like it simply because it was about relationships rather than Tree's childhood-is-magic/mommy-was-amazing/daddy-was-a-scawey-wawey nitwit parameters and the loose, flowing, accumulative details of relationships' irrational events, shapes, and decay work to recover all the lost goodwill of the earlier film. Most importantly, the photography is thematically as expansive and deep, as fleeting and flittering, as sleek, as warm, as aestheticizing and anesthetizing as the subject being captured. I loved the outdoor pool and the hands on the warm windows, I laughed at and loved the Italian friend, nearly cried at the prison, and just buzzed with love from the first image until the end. An amazing film.

Did you happen to be on MDMA at the time? I honestly went to see this based on your review, because I also found Tree of Life to be quite dull, but as it turned out I thought this was actually the worst Malick movie I've ever seen. I think he's a lot more suited to the "childhood-is-magic/mommy-was-amazing/daddy-was-a-scawey-wawey-nitwit" parameters than he is to the "french women r soo hot and totes wanna fuk me" parameters of this film.

Seriously, I thought this was godawful. I wish he'd just make a nature documentary already and stop with the miserable, facile voiceovers. I would watch two hours of him filming the Kansas countryside, but I don't think I'll bother with any more of his narrative films. Malick is officially Not For Me.

[transmogrifier]

Malick is officially Not For Me.

Malick post TTRL is not for me. I'm not going to bother with this. The voice-overs in The Tree of Life were agonizingly overwrought.

[Pop Trash]

The voice-overs in The Tree of Life were agonizingly overwrought.

Stop going the way of nature, trans.

[Stay Puft]

For about the first two thirds, this was easily another four star film for the year (Carruth's being my first). It just feels perfect. Every shot, every cut (I drink the Malick kool-aid, though, so there you go). And like Carruth's film, I'm in love with those soundscapes (probably the most distinctive element of To the Wonder compared to Malick's previous films): the way dialogue is mixed so loosely, quietly, freely, and the way the sound will focus in on certain details with the same instinctual curiosity as Lubezki's camera (the whirl of the merry-go-round, Neil fumbling with the gear shift when he's arguing with Marina at the drive-thru, lingering on a song at a party and carrying it into another scene). There's a warmth and softness to the film (before the darker aspects of the film appear, obviously, although there's brightness throughout), with all the shots of characters running, frolicking, rolling around on the carpet, the motif of light shining in through windows, shadows on the wall... I wanted to wrap myself in this movie and have a nap. This is some of Lubezki's best work, too. I want to use the word rapturous. I don't want to sound like a blithering Malick fan but fuck it, there's nothing else out there like the current Malick/Lubezki combo and it nourishes my aesthetic soul.

I did think the film had some structural problems, though. It's highly repetitive when Marina returns from Paris, which may be the point (certainly, the trajectory of events echoes her first visit), but I also thought it strange that what should be some of the most dramatically important events in the film are rendered the most oblique, especially the closing segments, which just feel hurried. This film could have used less plot (is that a weird criticism?). I found myself wanting a more focused emotional narrative experience, so I understand some of the colder responses to the film. This isn't The Tree of Life; there isn't enough scope to justify nearly two hours. I couldn't help but feel a shorter runtime would have helped here. As it is, the film just doesn't coalesce for me the way Malick's earlier films do, even though I did like the final voice over from Bardem's character (and the beautiful closing shots).

The more I ruminate on it, though, the more the sadness of the film starts to stir and shake me. I'd have to see it again, especially to get a better read on the ending, but even on a first viewing I do think it's mostly a success in the interplay it creates between the instinctual aesthetic elements (camera, sound, editing) that give the film a sort of primal sensory presence, and a deeper longing, a deeply felt absence, a more complicated human struggle to understand the world around us, and each other, with our given senses and ability to reason (the constant repetition of the "show me how to love you" and "teach me how to find you" voiceovers, which is the real key I find that weaves the Marina/Neil and the priest storylines together).

[Stay Puft]

That sea turtle, though. Seriously. I laughed for five minutes straight. The most lolwut moment of the year right there.

[Watashi]

I honestly don't remember the sea turtle.

[ledfloyd]

That sea turtle, though. Seriously. I laughed for five minutes straight. The most lolwut moment of the year right there.
Right!? I don't get it.

[transmogrifier]

After saying I would skip this, I found myself downloading it anyway. It'll sit there until I am in the mood to watch it. It's going to have to be a perfect combination of circumstances for that mood to eventuate, but I'm gearing up for it.

[wigwam]

Can't imagine watching this on a computer :(

The sea turtle was great.

[Sxottlan]

During post-screening discussion, we considered how Marina's Ukranian friend in the Oklahoma scenes could be perceived as a figment of her imagination, a way to let out her worst tendencies for a while (as Marina later states, she feels like two people).

That's how I read those scenes as well.

[Sxottlan]

I think I would have really loved this movie if it was just two hours of the lonely Father Quintana wandering around the slums of rural Oklahoma. But the nearly endless shots of people twirling and meandering around with narration about loving love did start to grate on me for the first time in Malick's films. Although I was intrigued by the shots at the end of someone flashing a light in the woman's face when she's seemingly alone.

By the way, I don't know if it was the theater where I saw this, but the sound was really well done in this. Certain things like a spinning globe of glass or oil drilling machinery. All contributed to a nice aural and visual experience.

[wigwam]

I don't think the friend is her imagination, also she's speaking Italian not Ukranian - she seemed like another immigrant whose experience and attitude were contextualizing our protagonists'

[Izzy Black]

I don't think the friend is her imagination, also she's speaking Italian not Ukranian - she seemed like another immigrant whose experience and attitude were contextualizing our protagonists'

I think that's right, but there's also something to be said about the highly subjective nature of the encounter, where the function and appearance of this character serves no other purpose than of realizing Marina's inner-dialogue with herself. This is why it's curious to me that Ed Gonzalez reads the scene so literally, and interprets the film as "cringingly reductive" of immigrant experience, as if that's what the film was setting out to achieve. If the film is to be taken as an account of immigrant experience, it's almost inevitably going to be reductive just as it would be reductive of love and marriage. The film works in fragmented poetic gestures, etching out through a visceral wave of feelings, moods, and sentiments the decay of a marriage and the search for purity. The ideas clearly aren't found in the details. We aren't given those.

It's also striking to me that he thinks Q'Orianka Kilcher's Pochahontas was somehow a better developed character than Marina. He thinks we have a better sense of what Kilcher's character gives up when she's displaced and relocated, but I don't think that's the case, as for Marina, it's clearly her daughter. I don't think Marina's connection to America, or Paris, or Ukraine, is rooted in a strong sense of cultural orientation, an original sense of place or home (as it is for Pochahontas). We get the sense that she was perhaps always displaced. In constant mettle with isolation and loneliness, Marina's Eden, her 'New World,' is Neil and her daughter, the home she perhaps never had. This is clear when she returns to Paris without either Neil or her daughter and it's utterly unbearable for her. Contrary to Gonzalez's suspicions, it's not that she thinks America is a better place, but that Paris is not a home without family. In this way, her character is almost more tragic than Pochahontas because home and happiness for her is not something culturally rooted, or something intimately bound to nature and her environment. She only gets glimpses of this kind of home, this kind of culture, as a visitor, a waif and perpetual immigrant, appreciating the beauty of Oklahoma and Mont St. Michel at a distance as a tourist and guest, but while only in the company of those she loves. This is why she seems so desperate for human attachment, so desperate to love someone so fully and completely, and to be loved the same. This is what really brings out the significance of the ending for her character. Pochahontas finds renewal in birth, sacrificing personal liberty for the connectedness with her own child, while for Marina, the renewal must come from separation, through liberation, but only by coming to terms with the the overwhelming fear of her own autonomy.

[Bosco B Thug]

Who knew, this may be more interesting, even more ambitious than The Tree of Life in my opinion. Malick shows a fearless interest in exploring social pockets here, and the quasi-documentary segments stun, while the spectacle of watching Ben Affleck pretend to be an "everyday professional" inspecting a geographic site is a brilliant mental discombobulation (same goes, but less so, with Javier Bardem at the prison, etc.). The brilliant first quarter may essentially be called "America vs. France!", and its depiction of the gap, often via the perception of the little girl, is vivid through really inspired cinematography.


I also thought it strange that what should be some of the most dramatically important events in the film are rendered the most oblique, especially the closing segments, which just feel hurried. Yeah, I really agree here. I didn't know what he was trying to say with Marina suddenly leaving with her tail between her legs (may be a unfortunate use of that phrase, sorry), which may just be me and my feelings about it, but it ties in with the idea that I lost track of the characters' feelings and motivations during this oblique, I'd call it coy closing stretch.

Going off on another track, and again this must just be me being pissy with Malick's story, but

concluding their story with dreamy shots of Marina in a boarding tunnel (going back whence she came!) was blech.

[eternity]

I've never seen an actor look so confused and discombobulated as Ben Affleck does in this. Wow.

[number8]

I found the cinematography in this... obvious, unoriginal, and generally not good? That feels weird to say about a Malick film, but it feels rehashed and repetitive. Does he have any new images to show us, since that's often his strength? Nick is right that half of this comes across as self-parody. I snickered when McAdams and Affleck were crying and fighting on piles of leaves. I think the key for Malick's exploration of emotions to work for me is if the film sells me on the subject matter it's grasping at immediately, and this one's is just highly annoying.

[Pop Trash]

Cineaste had a pretty harsh take down of post 70s Malick in their recent issue; this film in particular.

[Grouchy]

Jesus. Next time Malick attempts another two-hour-long exploration of his own asshole, count me out.

[wigwam]

we've all been counting you out of good movies since each of us joined the board, catch up already

[Ezee E]

we've all been counting you out of good movies since each of us joined the board, catch up already

Even Malick diehards are saying this is his worst, and a little overblown of his technique. I skipped it in the theater because I never heard anything positive about it.

[Rowland]

Even Malick diehards are saying this is his worstPlenty of them aren't.

[baby doll]

Personally, I can't figure out why someone would find this film significantly worse than The Tree of Life. If any thing, the earlier film was even less unified (the birth of the universe segment was lovely but irrelevant) and had a far more rambling narrative (especially in the second hour, which is this endless succession of self-contained vignettes).

[Boner M]

the birth of the universe segment was lovely but irrelevant
OK.

[EyesWideOpen]

I would consider myself a Malick fan and this was one of my favorite films of the year. The only movie of his I haven't cared for was The Tree of Life.

[Watashi]

Yeah, this may be Malick's "worst", but I'll take his worst over 99% of most cinema out there.

[DavidSeven]

It has all the typical flaws of a Malick piece but only some of the standard pros. The big problem is that it lacks some of the natural effortlessness of his previous work. This one feels especially forced and put-on. McAdams sounded like she was on sedatives, and Affleck was a complete non-entity. Kurylenko has a pulse, but I wonder if Malick bothered to asked her to do anything besides jump and dance around childishly. This was like watching a seminar on performing the Manic Pixie Dream Girl sans dialogue. I did like some of the film's idiosyncrasies and thought there were some meaningful emotions to be felt toward the end, but yeah, this definitely skirted too closely to self-parody all-in-all.

[Izzy Black]

Marina definitely is not a MPDG. The film is about her.