“Talking about dreams is like talking about movies, since the cinema uses the language of dreams; years can pass in a second and you can hop from one place to another. It’s a language made of image. And in the real cinema, every object and every light means something, as in a dream.” - Federico Fellini
Ostensibly a tale of growing up in small town America in the 50s, The Tree of Life shows an adult Jack (Sean Penn) attempting to come to terms with the many events in his past that have shaped his present self, including the death of his brother and his shaky relationship with his father, played by Brad Pitt (who is excellent here) . However this is no Stand By Me. Terrence Malick has no interest in using the adult Jack as a mouthpiece to explain his past and the events shown to us. In fact Malick dispenses with classical narrative techniques altogether, even more so than his previous movies. His mission statement here is not so much to tell a tale, but to explore the concepts of life and death in a cinematic poem.
