"... people want to look at art so that they can feel the way
Rilke felt when looking at the archaic torso of Apollo. They
want to be told: 'you must change your life.'"

Or change the way you view cinema. Terrence Malick's late films
are ultimate masterclasses of editing, taking roving camera
motion, quick edits, and montages to a stratospheric level Eisenstein
or Vertov could not have dreamed of. As the film festival circuit
crowd crawl out of their decade-long static camera, long-take
dead-end, Malick and his editors and cinematographer point
the way forward, towards an exhilarating, inspired cinematic
future, even if it will take time for the mainstream to adopt their innovations.

Let me retract my objections concerning Lubezki's camera work. I
first saw the film in San Diego's Hillcrest Landmark, supposedly
an art-house venue. Many images looked like they are from low-rent
home movies; they are incredibly distracting. I managed to catch
_Knight_ twice in a multiplex in my hometown and that ugly impression
Is gone. Most of the scenes look like they are shot on grainy
film stock (although they probably are not). Once in a while,
the filmmakers pointedly switch to a different, smoother, TV-like
pixelation. This happens, for example, at the end of the
Antonio ("the hermit") Banderas party segment. It seems to signal
one of Rick's waking-up moments, when he looks at the world
with a different lense, beyond the complacent surface to
probe the deeper truth. The effect reminds me of Tarkovsky's
second-sight sequences, albeit with far more mobile camera work.

Teresa Palmer's dancer whispers to Rick that everyone can be whatever
he or she wants to be, that the mind is a theater. Her character ("the
high priestess") thus announc es two key themes in the film. Early
on Rick looks at Palm trees and claim that they signal malleability of identity, too. It echoes the parable of the prince, his lost memory,
and aborted questfor the pearl-in-the-sea that opens the film, but
also signals hope and the possibility of spiritual renewal. Regarding
theater, all the Los Angeles scenes with his father Joe, played by
Brian Dennehy, seem to be Kabuki play-acting found only in Rick's mind.
I complained about the fact that we are not privy to this writer's (Rick's) imagination; I was mistaken. Joe is shown ruminating about his life on stage while a sparse audience applaud. He looks wistfully at a technology firm office-front, but the security guards shut the gates in his face. He shuffles files on a desk that is inch-thick in dust; he argues with his sons on dilapidated Los Angeles rooftops against the backdrop of glamorous
skyscrapers, and rinses his arms in a washbasin full of blood. These
are the images that Rick must be assembling in his mind, maybe for a screenplay. In fact, the sequences with groups of male characters
(family, Hollywood agents, and power brokers) arguing with and walking
past each other are like modern dances; they remind me of Claire Denis'
_Beau Travail_. Given Malick's classical frame of mind, perhaps they
are supposed to be Renaissance paintings brought to life.

The scenes between Rick and his women are in contrast mostly duets.
These women repeat each others' poses, visit the same locations, watch airplanes and helicopters fly by ... they are blur into one entity, but still remain distinct and compelling in their own ways. The most intriguing
of them is probably the character Ruth played by Cherry Jones. Is
she Rick's mother, since estranged from Joe? (The younger version of the mother character in _The Tree of Life_ is of course enacted by Jessica Chastain.) Just as mysterious is the Isabel character, who may be Rick's wife, perhaps even the mother of his child. The presence of her body is glimpsed early on and at the end (the "Freedom" segment) but seldom her face. Does she represent Alexandra Malick, to whom the film is dedicated? If so, is
the avoidance of the actress' face a sign of utmost respect, like in some Middle Eastern countries?

Isabel Lucas' features (chin and legs) resemble Natalie Portman's. Perhaps Rick choses her because has had such a strong emotional relation with Portman's Elizabeth before meeting Lucas'. The other pairing is
Imogen Poots/Cate Blanchett, whose pigment-challenged skin tones and
eyes also resemble each other's. Lovers are indeed condemned to seek
traces of their beloved in another. The youngest of the film's main
actresses, Poots gives perhaps the most memorable performance. Her
goth-girl Della is frank and perceptive about Rick in ways that only Blanchett's Nancy, the ex-wfe, manages. Even Portman's sensitive
Elizabeth lives inside her own theater of mind, imputing attributes to
Rick he doesn't deserve, which are refuted by Nancy. It can be argued
that most of the characters live inside their head as much as Rick does. Perhaps they are on screen not so much to comment on Rick's life as to
provide the writer with fodder for his art? To some extent, they are
all Rick's creations.

Freida Pinto's Helen ("the Sun") is not doubled. She is uniquely alluring,
her long neck enobled with thick gold bracelets, as though she is an ancient Egyptian goddess. She dances like a deity too, light as air. This fashion model is Rick's soulmate, dissatisfied with la Dolce Vita, is also searching for her own pearl. In patented sleight-of-hand, Malick shows her driving for
3 or 4 frames, and that's all we glean of her departure, but memory of her lithe body lingers.

In interviews, the producers suggest that Los Angeles is a character.
Is it then male or female? Burnt victims (not lepers as I first thought)
and homeless living out of supermarket carts near downtown LA haunts Rick's consciousness. Rick's brother is one of the demimondes, living on junk food
in an abandoned attic, hyperactive. He ultimately dies (of suicide?
overdoes?) He is probably on drugs; to Malick's credit drug-use is never
shown in the film, as though to avoid glamorizing the cocaine that wreaks
havoc on Mexico-border civilians). But LA is a woman too; Rick can never
take his eyes off the beauties of all ethnicities who glides on the
Sidewalks - even when his is with Nancy or Elizabeth. Unlike _To the Wonder_, women, not religion, are the keys to the protagonist's redemption, the light
in their eyes Rick's sought-after pearl in the sea.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)