After seeing "Tree of Life", I have long forbidden myself to write about this film. Two forces clashed in me. Subjugated by poetry, by the state of bliss in which I was plunged, I was afraid of disturbing the surface of this work. I got so tangled in the mystery of this film that I did not understand the negative reactions and was unable to have a critical mind 1 . "Tree of Life" is based on a book from the Bible, "Le Livre de Job". And this dark book speaks of the life and relationship of man to God. Which is present in many books in the Bible. But Job's book begins with a dialogue between God and Satan who play man. The impression that this inaugural dialogue leaves us is strange. Of course, the start dialogue would not be entirely from the same era as the central story. No matter in fact, the impression left is during the book. How can God play with his beloved creature? A hasty conclusion reports on the improbable of the situation. In truth, once the bark has been removed, Job's book delivers the heart of the relationship between God and man. And "Tree of Life", the film of Terrence Malick, has this same ambition.
Tag: journalism
The sticky moralism of the West
It is always fun and instructive to realize the contradictions of your adversaries. How, from this modern society so proud of its freedom, of its way of conceiving intimate things, this society of sensuality (when care has been taken to confuse sensuality and pornography), emerges a prudish, restrictive, voyeuristic and above all moralist (reread here the essay by Jean Marie Domenach: Une Morale sans moralisme). Where this plenipotentiary modern society tries to confuse the morality of Catholicism which it portrays as archaic, it very quickly develops anti-bodies in the form of a moralism which only feels good when judging the neighbor. This is petty-bourgeois morality. It is a French character trait. But that other European countries share with it.