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View Full Version : Voyage of Time (Terrence Malick)



Henry Gale
09-11-2016, 07:15 AM
IMDb (Life's Journey) (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1945228/) / IMDb (The IMAX Experience) (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt6024606/?ref_=nv_sr_2) / Wiki (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyage_of_Time)

http://cdn.collider.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/voyage-of-time-lifes-journey-poster.jpg

transmogrifier
09-11-2016, 07:58 AM
All that I have read about this makes it sound absolutely insufferable

Peng
09-11-2016, 01:24 PM
Sounds like the shorter IMAX version (without the voiceover?) is the way to go, I think? Waiting to be confirmed by people at the festival.

Stay Puft
09-11-2016, 06:09 PM
Ah, that's a clever way to do the thread+poll!

I'm quite curious to see Life's Journey, now, because I thought the IMAX version would just be a shorter version of the same film, with native IMAX footage, but it sounds like they're practically two different films on the same subject that only happen to use some of the same footage.

I heard some of the mixed rumblings from Venice (the usual complaints of flowery voiceover, Cate apparently addressing an abstract mother for two hours or whatever) but the IMAX version seems to be something of its opposite: Brad's narration is addressed to a child, and much of the voiceover is specifically about that child's curiosity and figuring out how "everything is put together" (to quote the film), so that Brad actually talks about things like the percentage of visible matter in the universe, the mechanics through which the Earth was formed and cooled, the forms that early life took (bacteria, etc.), and how the dinosaurs went extinct, etc. It's no Cosmos, granted, but it does feel a bit like it on a smaller (more poetically abstract, less scientifically specific, 45 minute) scale. And I'd hesitate to call it a consensus, but I have heard from a few people who have seen both and prefer the IMAX version, and I also read one trade review that specifically calls out Life's Journey as being a meandering slog and basically a distraction from the obviously superior IMAX version.

But, I mean, it's Malick. Never has YMMV applied more to a filmmaker. I wouldn't take any one person's reaction as critical guidance given how intensely variable reactions to his work can be. I even overheard two people at my screening arguing about whether or not anything Malick has done post-ToL even has a point and is worthwhile (one guy arguing Tree of Life is everything Malick has to say, and he's had nothing to say after it). Malick fans can't even agree on which films are self-parody, if any (or maybe it's all of them since Days of Heaven).

There's a lot to say about this one, however. It's probably the most impressive piece of craftsmanship I've witnessed all year. Having an artist like Malick paint with an IMAX brush is everything I could have wanted it to be. But I'll let Henry get a few words in about Life's Journey, first. I'm curious to hear how he reacted to that version. I'll talk more about the IMAX experience later, right now I gotta go watch a French-language Kurosawa joint that I'm going to regret spending $25 on...

Henry Gale
09-12-2016, 04:30 AM
Yea, I figured poll-wise it was the best way to go about things in terms of not having to wonder who saw what version since they are by all accounts wildly different.

Blanchett's narration is very abstract and essential feels as a fractured, defeated but wide-eyed soul who spans all time addressing creation of all sorts as "Mother", whether in any given circumstance that be taken as being directed to nature and the science of all things that exist and evolve, God, or simply one's actual mother. Pitt's seems like he literally speaking to the audience members of this Earth at this time, with the "Child" angle meant to engage young kids on IMAX field trips. (Personally unconfirmed, have not seen.)

I'll talk more about it when I'm more focused significantly less sleep-deprived from the fest. Bottom line, it's a stunning piece of work, or, an assemblage of work, entirely in terms of thinking "How am I seeing what I'm seeing?", "WHAT am I seeing?", "Is this real life? Is this just fantasty?", no matter how you feel about it functioning together cinematically or on whatever levels of messaging. It's deeply flawed, but I'm not sure it doesn't want to be?

I saw someone online call it a cross of Malick with Koyaanisqatsi/Samsara and Planet Earth and I'd that's pretty apt to a point, but with the narration and hard-left visual and tonal turns everywhere (he can go from 65mm footage to what seems like turn-of-the-decade cell phone video, right back to planet-creation business) it's something that's so completely and only him, showcasing even more of some of his more divisive impulses than usual (and if it doesn't work for you, you might simply call it self-parodic [EDIT: okay, just saw you already floating this term, Puft]). But you're either up for absolutely whatever it's going to serve you or you're going to reject it and have a terrible time.

Again, only seen the 90-minute, Blanchett-narrated, Life's Journey at the time of this post.

Stay Puft
10-16-2016, 11:05 AM
I'll talk more about it when I'm more focused significantly less sleep-deprived from the fest. Bottom line, it's a stunning piece of work, or, an assemblage of work, entirely in terms of thinking "How am I seeing what I'm seeing?", "WHAT am I seeing?", "Is this real life? Is this just fantasty?", no matter how you feel about it functioning together cinematically or on whatever levels of messaging. It's deeply flawed, but I'm not sure it doesn't want to be?

Yeah, exactly. I said it was perhaps the most impressive piece of craftsmanship I've seen this year and that's why. The images his team captures (or conjures up with computer graphics) are astounding. Some of the underwater footage (e.g. that squid closeup) especially had me marveling endlessly simply at what was being shown up on the screen. Awe and wonder is the reaction Malick is after, which is pointedly expressed in the IMAX version; one review called the film a prayer to a future generation, telling the child addressed in the narration to never stop marveling at existence, and in that context Voyage of Time plays like the greatest IMAX nature doc of all time.

As a probing journey into the meaning of all things (Heidegger gets quoted here, obviously, and I'm assuming the same is true for Life Journey's) I found the film less successful, perhaps because it's lacking the (necessary?) emotional focus provided by the family in The Tree of Life (and the images at the beginning of this film do look like deleted scenes from ToL, and yes that footage in IMAX is AMAZING) but there are a couple sequences that definitely strike a powerful chord, particularly the rumination on death, and the "day in a life" of a newborn dinosaur (god bless Malick for doing this with a straight face).

I have no idea when Life's Journey gets released, I'd like to check it out, but I also really just want that IMAX experience to wash over me again. If the purpose of film is to transform the way we see the world, as TIFF likes to remind me every year, Voyage of Time succeeded more than anything else at the festival, regardless of its weaknesses and failings, and with the strange caveat that I still wouldn't call it my favorite film of the festival. I don't know, it's a weird reaction. Most of Malick's recent output is deeply flawed, as Henry says, and yet... there's also something about that I cherish? I guess I'm a Malick diehard to the bitter end.

Henry Gale
10-16-2016, 10:54 PM
Totally hear what you're saying, even if a few specific things you mention aren't totally in alignment in my mind because, again, you're speaking to a very different version of the film. A month later, it still swirls in my head unexpectedly.

I wouldn't even put it in my Top 5 of the festival (though I guess I should mention I did have some shitty, entitled, mocking audience members talking and giggling behind me almost the entire time that could've also brought down the experience for me) but it's such a singular, insane thing that both feels galactic in size while minor and modest in practice that it can't draw any comparisons for almost all the right reasons (instead of, you know, the "Why would anyone do this?!" variety). But the fact that it's not one of my top favourite things at TIFF shows me just how awesome and generally reaffirming the stuff it showcased this year was.

Still really keen on seeing the IMAX version, but it's looking like the only place that might show it in the city is the Science Centre's OMNIMAX, which I haven't been to since I was in.. I dunno, middle school?

Henry Gale
12-06-2016, 08:05 AM
So, um.. There's now a third version. (http://variety.com/2016/music/awards/terrence-malick-ultra-wide-voyage-of-time-re-release-1201933834/)

As that Variety article details, this weekend, Malick is releasing the IMAX version without Pitt's narration in the ratio of 3.6:1 ‒ the widest ratio I have ever(?) heard of. To make the extensive cropping and re-framing possible, they also scanned the IMAX footage in 11K, which I also didn't even know was a possible thing at this point in time.

Honestly, this whole article reads like something that should've appeared on a geeky film website on April 1st. But nope! :D

Ivan Drago
12-09-2016, 08:09 PM
So, um.. There's now a third version. (http://variety.com/2016/music/awards/terrence-malick-ultra-wide-voyage-of-time-re-release-1201933834/)

As that Variety article details, this weekend, Malick is releasing the IMAX version without Pitt's narration in the ratio of 3.6:1 ‒ the widest ratio I have ever(?) heard of. To make the extensive cropping and re-framing possible, they also scanned the IMAX footage in 11K, which I also didn't even know was a possible thing at this point in time.

Honestly, this whole article reads like something that should've appeared on a geeky film website on April 1st. But nope! :D

I purchased tickets for this yesterday thinking it was the version with Pitt's narration because that's how Fandango listed it.....until they changed it to the ultra-widescreen version today.

Either way, I'm ready.

Ezee E
12-11-2016, 01:15 AM
This is playing at 11 PM... Ugh.

origami_mustache
01-17-2017, 04:32 AM
I saw the 40 minute IMAX version without any narration. I was really into it, but it felt like it kind of wrapped up and ended abruptly leaving me wanting more. It almost felt like an incomplete project. I didn't realize a feature version was planned, but that made what I watched make a lot more sense. Despite feeling the lack of closure it was still one of my favorite cinematic experiences of the year.