The Tree of Life

Tree of Life trailer por teasertrailer

One of the women at work had heard good things about this award winning movie so a few of us made a mid-week date to go and see it at a local mall. We were tired and not in the mood for anything heavy and couldn't believe what we were watching. The imagery was surreal and the theme was leaning hard on the existential side. During the intermission (yes, we still have an intermission here in Europe), the woman who suggested the film was apologizing all over the place.

After the show was over we had a 1/2 pitcher of sangria and some nibbles and talked about how much we disliked the film and wouldn't recommend it. It was getting late and we made our goodbyes. The next day the conversation continued at break and at lunchtime and focused a lot on one of the main themes of the movie: there are 2 ways to live life; the way of nature and the way of grace.

We usually think of "nature" as a positive force and this film shows just the opposite. Nature has been violent from the get go and the "big bang" theory is just one good example of that. The building of the land masses is a violent process whereby hot magma is forced from the center of the Earth and spewed into the atmosphere.  Mountains are formed by tectonic plate collision the force of which actually folds the earth's crust. The National Geographic channel shows us the predatory nature of animals. Man wasn't given a free pass on this either.

Grace on the other hand is a personal choice.  To live in a gentle way that scaffolds others and is full of communication, collaboration  and cooperation is a wonderful ideal. Think of a world guided by positivity. But as shown in the film, this is seldom the case.  Nature thunders in and snatches what it wants.  It's interesting to note that "gentle" finds it hard to survive such an atmosphere.  Maelstrom work environments are created by the struggle between these 2 groups of people. It's hard for these two types to co-exist and at the moment, I'm sorry to say, nature seems to be taking the lead.

Since I've seen this film I have thought a lot about it and weave it into conversation at every opportunity. I'm surprised that it's having a much bigger effect on me than I would have anticipated. As time passes, it's growing on me. It's hard to let go . . .

On second thought, I'm glad that I saw this film, would recommend it and all the discussions (and sangria) that it encourages.