People in San Diego can complain about the high cost of living
all they want -- at least they get to see Terrence Malick's
_Knight of Cups_.

The first thing that strikes me is the odd cinematography. While
_The Tree of Live_ and _To the Wonder_ look like they were shot
on film, _Knight of Cups_ seems to be lensed with a new video camera.
The night-time scenes of Los Angeles look hyper-real, halluncinatory.
But during daytime some images look like something out of home
movies. Cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki is so in-demand now I
wonder if he will be on board for Malick's next film. (If Malick
ever make another one after his next _Weightless_.) If not, I think
he may not be missed. Hanan Townshend contributes an Arabesque score,
A.J. Edward is once again among the editors, Jack Fisk shoulders
the production design, and Sarah Green heads the producer lineup.
They are really Malick's core team.

Despite some odd-looking images, the film makes you feel like you
are seeing the Malibu/Santa Monica Beaches, the LA County Museum,
even Las Vegas for the first time. (Malick shoots the backside
of a statue in the city of sin, as if to emphasize his inverted
perspective.) It is like van Gogh's paintings; I will never think
of the streets of downtown LA the same way after this film.

_Knight of Cups_ is more linear and focused than Malick's last
two. The intertitles ("The Moon," "the Sun," "the Tower," "the
High Priestess," "Death") provide an overarching guide, even if
sometimes they are misdirections or Beethovenian bridges across
linked movements. The film acquires an accumulated power from
them and from the opening monolog about the knight searching for
a pearl in the sea but is lulled to sleep by the distractions in
exotic lands. Every time we see a swimming pool we look for
that pearl; every flood-light reminds us of the moon.

Christian Bale is the lost soul who has forgotten his quest for
the grail. He is a screenwriter who may be a stand-in for the
younger Malick. His intense, sometime adversarial relationship
with his father and brother, revisited throughout the film,
forms the spine of the story. The flesh is a parade of women,
his love interests. In this way _Knight of Cups_ recalls Wong
Kar-Wai's _2046_ where a writer flounders in cities of his lost
loves while he searches for redemption. If _Knight_ doesn't
quite measure up to _2046_, _The Tree of Live_, and _To the
Wonder_, well, those are after all my choices for the best film
of the 2000s and No. 1 & 2 best films of the 2010s, respectively.
They set the bar pretty high.

Christian Bale is no match for Tony Leung in _2046_. I thought
Teresa Palmer, a fine, well-regarded young Australian actress,
would be the standout. She plays an exotic dancer who tells Bale's
character Rick that identities are fluid, that they can anything
they wish. (Malick labels her "the high priestess.") But Palmer
proves to be no Zhang Ziyi. Cate Blanchett, never a favorite of
mine, impresses most as the humanitarian ex-wife who comforts
lepers. She is the only woman Rick fixates on in multiple
flashbacks. So she must be Maggie Cheung, the hidden center, in
Wong's _In the Mood for Love_ semi-sequel? The fortune tellers
only have one scene but recall Gong Li's mysterious poker player.
Natalie Portman is the other mature woman in his life. She is
committed to another (shades of Faye Wong in _2046_?) and their
liaison ends badly. The rest are all young girls. Freida Pinto
is the Sun, a fashion model who has the regal spirit of Q'orianka
Kilcher in _The New World_; Juno Temple is even younger, seductive
and smart; Jessica Lucas becomes the mother of his child but is
strangely kept faceless and obscure. The women all have voiceovers,
a return to the polyphonic world of _The Thin Red Line_, but in
truth none of the actors and actresses stand out, can be compared
to the cast of _2046_ or even _To the Wonder_. _The Tree of
Life_ made Jessica Chastain a star, and how much of that film
was she in? Let's hope Haley Bennett, the unknown headliner in
Malick's _Weightless_, will be Malick's next supernova.

Comparisons with _The New World_ are just as fruitful. Malick
presents the revelers in Las Vegas and Los Angeles discos as
menacing Others, much like the aborigines in his James Town film.
Lubezski's camera stares at their firm flesh and larger-than-
life earrings as if they are from another planet. In one
memorable scene, a dancer hangs from the roof and sheds her
chrysalis-like overalls, as though achieving rebirth. Early on
Malick depicts the earth itself exuding purple haze, like
it is shrouded in magic. _Knight of Cups_ is full of magic.
I have to watch it many times to unravel all its mysteries.

(for A.)

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Juno Temple is even younger, seductive
and smart; Jessica Lucas becomes the mother of his child but is
strangely kept faceless and obscure.

That's two misidentified actresses in one sentence. Particular
apology is due Isabel Lucas, who isn't treated too fairly by
the director. It is Imogen Poots who plays the first woman we
see in the film, Della, not Juno Temple.

_Knight of Cups_ keep cutting from naked or scantily clad women
to barren rocks, like Bruno Dumont's underrated _Twentynine Palms_.
The editing encapsulates the emptiness and failure in Rick's life
more than any actorly trick Christian Bale manages to pull.

Some one once asked me my favorite films about writers. _2046_
rises to the top; it really shows the creative process, as well
as cinematic representation of what the writers actually wrote.
This is one thing I wish _Knight of Cups_ would do more of.

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