The Tree of Life

The first time I was exposed to the idea of "grace" was when I briefly lived in Northeast Iowa. There were a lot of Lutherans, and the subject of grace was so prevalent in the area over there that it was even discussed on snowy nights in a corner booth of a low-lit bar. Grace. A Preacher's Kid (PK)--meaning that a PK held a special social status, another idea I had never before contemplated--suggested that grace meant a sort of life trajectory inspired by the divine or, at the very least, a nod to the importance of a spiritual path or presence. Maybe, that's not even right; I was, after all, drunk most of the time I was living in Iowa. You would be, too--especially in the winter.

The movie, The Tree of Life, opens with a voiceover discussing the differences between a natural life and a spiritual one. The directions are separate and parallel. They cannot interject or overlap. This co-existence in different spheres makes it even more difficult to receive a satisfying answer about the state of the universe. And, the state of the universe encompasses all living beings, all facets of the planet earth, all stages of life. Included, and not less or more significant, are human emotions. I suspect that the writer/director was attempting to tie the states together because life trajectories do not run parallel to one another; they inherently intersect.

The Tree of Life is beautifully shot. The images are both out of National Geographic Magazine and each human's recollection of his or her respective childhood. The story of the family is set in the 1950s. But, the emotions evoked from the boys or the mother or the father could be taken out of anyone's own memory. The story is not sequential, but that's okay because we don't remember events in their correct order. We remember events in the order of their significance to the individual remembering. We only need to make sense of the emotional impact of events and feelings. The sequence is really secondary.

The movie is peppered with narrative musings and (maybe forever) unanswered questions. When it was all over, I felt both reserved and connected. We are all alone, after all. But, the loneliness is maybe bearable if we realize that our feelings are not only universal, but influenced by the universe.