Rev. Danny Fisher

Wardrobe by Jacqueline West from Terrence Malick's "The Tree of Life" on display at the ArcLight Hollywood, Hollywood, CA, May 28th, 2011. Photo by the author.

I went to Hollywood today to see Terrence Malick’s new film The Tree of Life on one of the four (yes, four) screens it is currently being shown on in the United States.

The film, Malick’s fifth in almost forty years, recently received the Palme d’Or at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival.

I’ve video-blogged before about how Malick’s Oscar-nominated The Thin Red Line is my favorite movie. Well, it may just have been eclipsed by this new one.

It’s extraordinary. Truly. It’s breathtaking. One of the most powerful experiences I’ve ever had at the movies, and maybe the most powerful in at least a couple of important regards. Every film should be so astonishing and affecting to its audience, and so deeply felt and beautifully, ambitiously conceived by its maker.

I’ll be writing a review of it for The Journal of Religion and Film, so I’ll have more to say about it soon. In the meantime, I think Roger Ebert, A.O. Scott, and Scott Tobias, and have written the best and most eloquent reviews so far.

I can’t recommend it enough. As I said, it’s in only four theaters nationally right now, but will expand to more (but not that many more) in the coming months. It’s definitely worth trekking out to if it’s not going to be in your city.