Yesterday we had no obligations. So it was all about enjoyment, partaking of satisfying food and drink, and submerging in a movie experience. A movie unlike most movies you will see, Terrence Malick's "To the Wonder." Beautiful. Ravishing. Every scene. I didn't go head over heels for it, and I wonder why, but I think it's a striking, beautiful vision.
Turns out it is also the last film Roger Ebert reviewed before he died. He tells us "To the Wonder" is almost a "silent film," with the actors used almost as models. Here is Roger on the film:
"Well," I asked myself, "why not?" Why must a film explain everything? Why must every motivation be spelled out? Aren't many films fundamentally the same film, with only the specifics changed? Aren't many of them telling the same story? Seeking perfection, we see what our dreams and hopes might look like. We realize they come as a gift through no power of our own, and if we lose them, isn't that almost worse than never having had them in the first place?
There will be many who find "To the Wonder" elusive and too effervescent. They'll be dissatisfied by a film that would rather evoke than supply. I understand that, and I think Terrence Malick does, too. But here he has attempted to reach more deeply than that: to reach beneath the surface, and find the soul in need."
Javier Bardem is amazing as a priest wrestling with his faith, and Olga Kurylenko is just so beautiful and graceful. Takes your breath away. I do think it's hard to convey wonder and transcendence and the struggle to hold onto grace and beauty, but this film gets close...
