FILM REVIEW: TREE OF LIFE

Father (Brad Pitt) and R.L. (Laramie Eppler) in Tree of Life.

"Dear God"

By Don Simpson 

I am still attempting to digest The Tree of Life a week after seeing the press screening, making some sense of it all and figuring out exactly what writer-director Terrence Malick is trying to communicate (or maybe I am just having a difficult time getting beyond the CGI dinosaurs). When it comes down to it, The Tree of Life‘s cup runneth over with metaphoric imagery and references to Judeo-Christian scriptures (primarily the Book of Job) and I am desperately trying to wrap my head around it all.

There are essentially three distinct yet intertwined segments of The Tree of Life that play like movements in a symphony: The O’Brien family in the 1950s; Jack O’Brien, the eldest son, 30 years later; and what I loosely refer to as “dawn of time” imagery.

Malick dedicates a majority of the film’s screen time to the O’Brien family and their idyllic Texas home. Mr. O’Brien (Brad Pitt) and Mrs. O’Brien (Jessica Chastain) have three sons: Jack (Hunter McCracken), R.L. (Laramie Eppler) and Steve (Tye Sheridan). On the surface, their household appears to be as perfect as Leave It to Beaver. Mr. O’Brien has a good, secure job as an engineer (with several patents under his name) and he plays the pipe organ at church on Sundays while Mrs. O’Brien has the middle-class privilege of cleaning the house and raising the boys. The O’Brien family resides in a beautiful and spacious home with fresh air and daylight gushing through the open windows. It is the quintessential life for a white middle-class American family, but once you peel away the top layer -- the facade of suburban tranquility and happiness -- an ugly underbelly of a family ruled by the dictatorial iron fist of Mr. O’Brien is revealed. Mrs. O’Brien is rendered voiceless in the household and the three sons live in a constant state of fear of their father.

Thirty years later, Jack O’Brien (Sean Penn) resides in an aesthetically cold and sterile home and works in an aesthetically cold and sterile architecture office in Houston, Texas. The uninviting nature of both postmodern environments work in purposeful juxtaposition to the comforting openness of Jack’s modernist childhood home. Jack does not say or do much (Penn has approximately 15 minutes of screen time and very little on screen dialogue despite his second billing), other than recollect his past. It is the 30th anniversary of R.L.’s death (we are told that R.L. was 19-years old when he died, yet the timeline is so fractured that it is difficult to know for certain), and that event still renders Jack a listless zombie. (Note: Malick’s youngest brother, an aspiring guitarist, committed suicide in the late 1960s.) 

Jack struggles to make peace with his youth, particularly his relationship with his father and his brother’s premature death. Jack recalls several moments that still haunt him to this day, such as when he: tied a frog to a rocket; threw rocks through a window of a neighbor’s shed; broke into a neighbor’s house; shot R.L.’s finger with a BB gun; talked back to his mother; and prayed that God would kill his father. The Tree of Life is intended to be Jack’s own meditations on his childhood all the while contemplating God’s existence and the meaning of life. Jack perceives himself as the bad son and R.L. as the good (the righteous) son -- so why did God take R.L.’s life? Or, as Job often pondered: Why do the righteous suffer?

The “dawn of time” imagery showcases a psychedelic fantasia of bizarre cosmological phenomena a la the “The Dawn of Man” and “Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite” chapters of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. First, the Big Bang; then, primordial ooze and molten magma; next, unicellular organisms evolve into multicellular organisms...and eventually there are a couple of dinosaurs. In theory, these visual head-trips represent Jack’s contemplation of the universe (thus revealing the triviality of his selfish concerns). In reality, these scenes are more likely to just conjure up inquiries into "what was Malick on?” while he imagined all of this.

The final coda brings all three segments of the film together, well sort of. We witness the earth’s demise and then a bevy of lost souls (including the O’Brien family) wandering along a beach to an endless echo of “amen” from “Berlioz: 10. Agnus Dei [Requiem, Op. 5 (Grande Messe des Morts)]” as conducted by Sir Colin Davis and performed by Wandsworth School Boys Choir, London Symphony Chorus and London Symphony Orchestra.

Malick has historically kept his affinity for metaphorical imagery somewhat in check, but his cerebral tendencies run rampantly wild within The Tree of Life. I have absolutely no complaints with the deliberately obtuse nature of Malick’s choices in imagery; in fact, it is cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki’s (who earned a Best Cinematography Oscar nomination for Malick’s The New World) unabashed eye candy that is the strongest element of The Tree of Life. Lubezki adroitly conveys Malick’s transcendentally dreamy vision. Several scenes play out with no spoken dialogue -- just sporadic lines of voiceover and a heavy dose of classical music (Bach, Holst, Goreckí, Mahler), so the images are left shouldering the burden of meaning. For that reason alone, The Tree of Life will certainly be one of my favorite visual films of 2011.

Three subjects that are readily discussed in Malick’s other films -- Badlands, Days of Heaven, The Thin Red Line, and The New World -- are also quite prominent in The Tree of Life: humankind’s constant struggle with nature; the inherent violence found within all humans; and the tug-of-war of gender roles. Yet in The Tree of Life Malick wraps these three subjects into a greater discussion on the battle between the way of nature (the selfish pursuit of earthly ambitions) and the way of grace (living a life of love and compassion for all).

Malick truly hits his stride when focusing on the subconscious conflict that occurs during childhood -- when young personalities are being shaped into their adult equivalent -- between the forces of good and evil. Children are prone to make poor choices during childhood, and sometimes those choices (like several of Jack’s) continue to haunt one’s memories long into adulthood. The adult Jack would never purposefully shoot his brother’s finger with a BB gun or tie a frog to a rocket, yet the adult Jack still feels guilty for the poor choices he made as a child. Like his father, Jack dishonored nature and never noticed “the glory”; he chose a selfish and violent path, rather than following his mother’s path of love.

An over-reliance on voiceovers has always been Malick’s one weakness and The Tree of Life seems to rely even more heavily upon voiceovers than his other four films. Understandably, Malick utilizes whispery and ethereal voiceovers to place the audience inside Jack’s mind as he regurgitates his childhood memories and waxes existentially (Malick is a disciple of Martin Heidegger), but Malick is simultaneously synopsizing the Book of Job for us, and this is enough to clear the seats of any atheists in the audience. There will certainly be accusations that The Tree of Life is a shameless proselytising of Judeo-Christian doctrine, but I interpret The Tree of Life as being quite the opposite. 

The title of the film references a non-denominational symbol that spans the breadth of religion, science, philosophy and mythology. Jack (like Malick) was raised as a Christian, so it only makes sense that Jack (and Malick) would turn to the Old Testament when attempting to come to terms with his brother’s death; Job -- a character who directly challenges God -- is chosen to convey Jack’s (and Malick’s) theological quandary. Jack (and Malick) doubts the existence of God, but at the same time he chooses to address God directly, challenging him (as Job did) to answer his accusations and questions. 

The Tree of Life reportedly received a conflicting chorus of boos and applause after its world premiere at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival. Nonetheless, Malick’s film received the Palme d'Or, but the infamously reclusive director was nowhere to be found.

THEATER REVIEW: TARTUFFE

A scene from Tartuffe.

French fried

By Ed Rampell

In this laugh-a-minute revival, Tartuffe gets the full Actors’ Gang and David Ball vaudevillean and slapstick treatment. One half expects a thespian to cry out: “Hey MO-liere!” or “pick two fingers” from the stage, as the French Shakespeare is channeled through the Trois Stooges and Marx Freres. Director Jon Kellam’s misanthropic mise-en-scene demolishes the sacrosanct notion of theatre’s “fourth wall” and the proscenium arch, as actors archly, directly address the audience and run around the entire playhouse like whirling dervishes crossed by the Flying Wallendas. For good measure, those Commedia dell’ Arte masks that the Gang’s artistic director, Tim Robbins, so adores adorns the punims of a couple of the players, while whiteface makeup is applied to the faces of other cast members. As the slide whistles sound, one could say: “The Gang’s all here.”

The devil-may-care troupe’s high voltage frenetic rendering of Moliere’s comic mess-terpiece is mostly good fun, and the players are anything but miserly when it comes to the yuks. But beneath the farcical façade is a serious message about religion that comes hard on the heels of the Gang’s April 5 "Satiristas" spoof lampooning traditional and fringe religions. In 1664 Tartuffe was considered to be so sacrilegious and scandalous it was banned, but the playwright’s razor sharp viewpoint remains as relevant today as it did in 17^th  century France. The eponymous Tartuffe (Pierre Adeli) is a guru who beguiles the wealthy, older Orgon (a masked P. Adam Walsh) and his elderly mother Madame Pernelle (Mary Eileen O’Donnell). They are spellbound by Tartuffe’s mumbo jumbo and piety, and Tartuffe’s religious reign over the household is enforced by his servant/spy Laurant (Gang stalwart Steven M. Porter, who also plays Loyal), a character more “Eavesdropping” Laurant than Yves St. Laurent.

However, the holy man turns out to be a pious poseur, a Freudian fraud who has lechery and larceny in his heart. Tartuffe conspires to seduce Orgon’s younger wife, Elmire (Vanessa Mizzone), and to rip off his posh castle, moat and all. Holy chateau!

Tartuffe’s religious hypocrisy will remind modern audiences of televangelist scam artists such as Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, Jimmy Swaggert and more recently, Ted Haggard. Moliere’s suppressed Tartuffe finally saw the light of day and of the footlights in 1667, but a third of a millennium later, bedazzled holy rollers are still hoodwinked and bamboozled by preachers who turn out to be imposters. (Moliere’s play is alternatively entitled L’Imposteur, and gullible zealots eternally remain horse’s posteriors in the face of the promise of eternal life and all that opiate-of-the-masses razzmatazz.)

The well directed large, ensemble cast performs with much panache and tomfoolery. Standouts include Jeremie Locka, who plays the smitten suitor of Orgon’s daughter, Marianne (the delightfully delirious Hannah Chodos), like a cross between Steven Tyler and Mick Jagger, with all the glitz, glamour, ardor and moves of a 17^th century continental rock star. Sabra Williams provides mirth and eye candy as the housemaid Dorine, making ticket buyers grateful for those low-cut French fashions of the sizzling 1660s. As in subsequent productions by the French playwright Pierre Beaumarchais and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart about a certain Figaro, Sabra’s sparkling, spunky servant speaks volumes, if comically (and in a British accent), about the era’s class struggle.

This production is a revival of the Gang’s Kellam-directed 2005 version of Tartuffe, based on the adaptation by David Ball, which is arguably true to the spirit, if not the letter, of Moliere’s original. The sound effects and music by Jef Bek – who wears a cross between a Harpo hairpiece, fright wig and The Donald’s coiffure as he tickles the ivory – adds to the buffoonery. However, the same sounds and other effects are used repeatedly during the 75 or so minute first act, rendering about 10 or 15 minutes of it a bit tedious, due to this redundancy. But the around hour-long second act zips along faster than a speeding bullet at a dizzying pace, making this Tartuffe irresistible for those who delight in onstage drollery (and picking on the French).  

Tartuffe runs through April 30 at the Actors’ Gang at the Ivy Substation theatre, 9070 Venice Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232. For more info: 310/838-GANG; www.theactorsgang.com

      

FILM REVIEW: BLACK DEATH

Langiva (Carice von Houten) in Black Death.

A sign of tortuous times

By Ed Rampell

Like Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal, Black Death is set in Europe during the Dark Ages, with man confronting death and his own mortality. Although it’s not in the same league as the 1957 classic starring Max von Sydow as a benighted knight, I found director Christopher Smith’s movie to be an engrossing account of Europe ravaged by the Black Death. It is also a frightening tale as well as quite thought provoking.

Set in 1348 England (but shot in Germany), the Grim Reaper comes in Black Death not in the form of a cloaked spectral chess player but as bubonic plague sweeping the continent, wiping villages and monasteries out. An elite unit of knights, who are skilled swordsmen and torturers -- think Dark Ages Dirty Dozen or Middle Ages Magnificent Seven -- led by the formidable Ulric (Sean Bean of the upcoming The Magnificent Eleven) are dispatched to a distant plague-free village. Osmund (Eddie Redmayne), a young, fallen monk familiar with the terrain, is recruited to lead the not-so-merry band on their somber mission.

David Warner, who portrayed the madcap Marxist in 1966’s delightful film, Morgan! (which Jacob Tierney’s wonderfully droll 2009 comedy, The Trotsky, is reminiscent of), plays an Abbot -- minus Costello, as this is definitely not a comedy. Indeed, like those European Medieval Mystery plays, Black Death is a morality tale suffused with religious themes. When Ulric encounters the village spared the plague, he has something quite different in mind than learning from them how the rest of Europe can scientifically be saved from destruction.

Led by the sensuous healer Langiva (Carice van Houten), the villagers know the not-so-gallant knights have something up their armored sleeves. Black Death becomes a very philosophical film about sexuality: free love versus original sin. It also questions the nature of religion and the existence of God, just as Bergman’s masterpiece did 54 years ago. The ensuing debate between Christian fundamentalists and pagans is cleverly contemporary, and Dario Poloni’s screenplay is suggestive of the current struggle between religious zealots and atheists.

Some wags have pointed out that today’s nonbelievers, typified by Christopher Hitchens, are as dogmatic and doctrinaire in their discarding and denying of deities as the faithful flock. Touche! (Although I noticed on a recent 60 Minutes report that Hitchens, who is now battling cancer – not bubonic plague -- appears to be giving himself some theological wiggle room. You know – just in case. Call it the “No atheists in the foxhole syndrome.”) In any case, regarding Black Death’s faction fight, your humble scribe says: “A plague upon both of your houses!”

I generally avoid horror movies like the, ahem, plague, but I found this spooky flick and its trip two thirds of a millennium back in time to long ago and far away to be an absorbing and enthralling voyage. Amen.