Movie Review: Tree of Life

The film Tree of Life was difficult to follow and fully understand even after preparing myself with the trailer. To me the overall concept of the movie was about a boy out of about 3 siblings who had difficulty respecting authority in the house; His father was trying to raise his boys through a hard attitude only a man can truly understand. Jack seemed to have taken this hard attitude more difficult than his other brothers, expressing the attitude of a bratty child wanting to get away with whatever mischief he had wanted to.
I didn't understand why the different shots of the nature were so constantly shown as if nature was to have some kind of relation to the family. I didn't understand the random creative shots of different patterns of lights  , as well as the shot of a wounded dinosaur licking itself. What was Jack's reasoning for him placing his mother's dress into a stream? did he have this weird obcenity of this dresse or was he simply looking for attention. This film raised lots of questions but in the end Jack just came off as the guy wanting a loving relationship from his father most of all. The reason I make that connection is because it was his father I believe that set this false image of what a man is supposed to be like in life. This hard being with little emotion, treats his family and wife with disrespect on many occasions.

Background: The Book of Job

I really enjoyed the reading of the Job story because it carried a lesson that my mother had taught me through this same story. The lesson was that some times bad things happen to good people, and that most of the time its out of our control. Job was known as a righteous man to many but was allowed to be tampered with by Satan himself solely to prove the point that if hewas to lose all he has in the world, he would still remain loyal and faithful to the higher power also known as God. Job had lost family members, his cattle, crops, and his own health; though expected of all man placed in this situation, it seemed to be unacceptable for the righteous Job to lose all understanding and sense of mind in terms of his faith to his God. After being questioned by God, this seemed to have given Job some kind of understanding which turned out to be enough to hold his sense of mind until God rewarded him with twice of what he had before.

To me films today examine suffering by taking a character with some sort of struggle and ending the film proving that there is a way to overcome it. How films do this is they setup the film so the viewer raises questions in their mind allowing them to make some sort of a connection. An example of a film using this concept would be "Taken". The film was basically about a paranoid father who fears the thought of something bad happening to his young daughter preparing herself to travel outside of the country somewhat on her own. The father knows much about dangerous possibilities in the world because he used to work for a special agency, which is why he suffers mentally over the idea of his daughter being kidnapped on her first time on her own, because he feels it is his fault for allowing her to leave in the first place. We can connect this to Job because other than his illness, Job suffered mentally as well, not understanding why God has allowed all of this negativity upon his life. 

First Impressions (Tree of Life)

My first impression of this film was very confusing for me to pin point what the film's concept. It starts out with beautiful shots of various colorful lighting, then transitions quickly to a birds eye view of the earth that seems to be suffering from a nuclear explosion. The trailer continues with more attractive shots of nature up close such as a shot under water and a low level view towards tall trees. I was then introduced to what seems to be a very happy and loving family; there is a mother, a father, and about three boys. Shortly after a quick introduction to the family I saw the father getting agressive with one of his son's repeatedly demanding him to hit his face. Now the trailer begins to express that this family is not as perfect as I first expected, the child and his father have some sort of friction; later on in the trailer the fahter confesses to his son that he wants him to be strong for the world ahead, explaining the reasoning for the father's agressiveness towards the boy. The trailer continues with another colorful shot, this one seeming to have a flame like cloud appearance. This shot then brought me to my first question, what is the point of showing these shots in the trailer? I can't seem to make any connection to these random shots of nature and lights to the story of this family.

Thoughts on Poem & Paper

While reading the poem In A Breath, I instantly saw that the different stanzas were writings of scenes about a film. I was able to tell this because each stanza was described as if it was trying to place a vision inside the audiences mind as a film is capable of doing as well. 

The paper started off by capturing my attention instantly with its opening sentence; "For as long as people have been able to conceptualize time, they have commented on its command over life." This sentence captured my attention because I didn't fully understand it but I felt that this would be the writer's main point of discussion, for this reason it made it even more interesting. The writer then goes on by explaining how time commands our life, and then transitions into examples through class readings and films. I also liked the idea of setting aside a whole half of the paper to the poem topic. The writer takes the poem In A Breath and compares it to the film Nanook in relation to being a documentary. This was interesting to me because I never looked into the poem as having any relation to documentary before I read this. The setup of this paper was well organized and well written. 

Review on Nanook

The film Nanook of the North is known for being the first documentary. I found the film to be both entertaining, educational, and a way of escape; reason being that I learned things I did not know before and was also amazed by the way these Eskimos got through each day. Through the film I was able to see how they built Igloos, how they fished, and hunted for seals and walrus. We got to see how they traveled both on land and water. It was amazing to see dog sledding transportation in real life situations rather than a scripted movie. The dogs would fight with each other to prove dominance over another and end up slowing down needed traveling time. Seeing how the family traveled through sea impressed me as well; apparantley one Kayak boat can hold about 5 family members and a puppy. As being the first documentary film, I found similarities between Nanook and other reality TV shows shown today such as Jersey Shore. They are similiar in the way that both film the day to day lifestyle of a main character or family. The idea is for a cameraman to follow these main characters and watch how they live their life. The issue I have with reality TV today, is that most of their showings is scripted entertainment. To me reality TV should be real not written out before they appear on video.

Artifacts

To me the nightmare scene in Hugo symbolized how technology and machines can effect lives negatively. During the  nightmare sequence we see that Hugo is possibly murdered by the incoming train; the train destroyed the station while possibly injuring many citizens as it busted right through the windows off of the stations second floor. In Hugo's second nightmare we see him transform into the automaton he has been trying to fix for a great time during his life. I relate the first nightmare to how technology can be destructive for the reason that the train ends up destroying the whole station while endangering several lives. I related the second nightmare scene with how technology can mentally ruin a life through Hugo's passing of his father. During the film I understand that Hugo's last memory of his father is of the broken automaton that he and his faher spent their time together trying to fix. Hugo's father died in a museum fire; since the incident Hugo has independently been trying to finish the automaton he started in hope of finding a message potentially left behind from his father. Hugo dedicated his life to finding out what happened to his father through this piece of technology. I believe that the existence of the automaton is stopping Hugo from moving on in life, which is a way of showing the negative effect tachnology can have on one mentally.
In the film Modern Times (1936) we see that technology has the ability to turn a man crazy in the head. Charlie Choplin's character was a man who originally worked at a factory as a screw tightning guy; his twisting motions were so repetitive that it caused him to twitch and feel as if everything in a round shape needed tightning. This caused Choplin to lose his job and end up in jail, giving an example of how technology/machines can effect one's life in a negative way.

Nightmare Sequence in Hugo (Specifically)

Specifically in Hugo's nightmare sequence, the train signifies the early introduction of film to society. In Hugo they discuss how the audience was at first frightened by the idea of an incoming train on the screen; as they began to understand how film can work. The thought that a screen can place one at a whole other setting from which they already were was fascinating.
The nightmare sequence connects to two other scenes in the movie. One connection is how Hugo dreams of finding the heart shaped key, and the second being him transforming in the automaton. The finding of the key in the dream connects to how Hugo really finds it through its owner which happens to be his friend. Hugo makes a discovery with how the key first belonged to George. M; thinking that he may have an idea of what happened to his deceased father. The second connection of Hugo transfroming into the automaton makes a connection with Hugo's life and the loss of his father. This broken automaton is the only memory Hugo has left of his father. Through the film I understand that Hugo has dedicated his life to fixing this machine to find an answer to a message that his father may have left behind. Him transforming into the automaton signifies how this machine has taken over his life and who he has become as a person.
During the nightmare sequence there were key cinematic moments, an example is when tracking was used while the navigator realized that Hugo was on the track. I believe they decided to show a closeup of the train wheels to let the audience know how a machine can work and how it can fail. I feel that there are some people who see no wrong with machines and technology, but the truth is that almost anything can go wrong. I thought of this during this scene; first there was a closeup of the train wheels as it was functioning correctly, then there was another closeup as the wheels were trying to be stopped but couldn't.