Francis X. Clooney, S.J. finds grace in Melancholia's portrayal of depression and end times:
Justine is in tune with a reality others do not see, from which they hide themselves; she was depressed because reality is depressing; she felt, before knowing why, that the ordinary life of wealth and pleasure and business, partying and marrying, had no point at all, since everything was about to change, absolutely. By ordinary standards, Justine is simply clinically depressed. In a larger perspective, in light of what actually happens, she is right. She has seen what no one else can see.
Brett McCracken compares the film to Malick's Tree Of Life:
Today on the Dish, we pored over the results of the first Dish Check, Matt Taibbi added his two cents, and we learned of a new torture technique devised at Gitmo. The jobs situation isn’t getting worse (there are even signs of continued growth), our sense of fairness stems from justice and not equality, and Obamacare is working. The allegations against Herman … Continue reading The Weekly Wrap
Thank you for continuing to engage Terrence Malicks's criminally under-attended The Tree of Life. Even as an athiest, I believe the film to be a masterpiece and an extraordinary source of beauty. I'd like to correct, however, Fr. Barron's otherwise lovely meditation on the film. He characterizes the encounter of the two dinosaurs as an example of "nature," and describes one dinosaur as "dominating" the other. In fact, the scene depicts both "nature" and "grace" – or, rather, the development of one following the other. The dominant dinosaur is shown pushing the injured dinosaur's face into the ground. This is "nature," as Fr. Barron describes. But the scene does not stop there. The dominant dinosaur then appears to effect something akin to mercy and backs away from the injured dinosaur, leaving him in peace. It would apear that Malick has shown us the birth of "grace."
Another writes:
While I'm personally a Christian – and I was knocked out by Malick's film every bit as much as you were – I left the theater feeling it was a devastating, almost unanswerable challenge to the Christian message. If the film is asking whether the universe tilts toward nature or grace, I would say Malick puts his thumb on the scales every-so-slightly in favor of grace. But I had a powerful feeling in my gut that it's all just nature.
Today on the Dish, Herman Cain faced allegations of sexual harassment, a few on the right took them seriously, and it's possible that we're headed for another "high-tech lynching" drama. A management-side employment lawyer urged caution, the legacy of Palin endured, and in our video feature, Andrew discussed Cain's performance art in the context of a degenerate Republican … Continue reading The Daily Wrap
A reader writes: There’s a problem with Rob Bell’s critique of Christianity, in particular, this: This is why lots of people want nothing to do with the Christian faith. They see it as an endless list of absurdities and inconsistencies; and they say: “Why would I ever want to be part of that?” Not quite. … Continue reading Whatever Happened To Hell? Ctd
Liel Leibovitz traces the tension between Catholic and Jewish teachings about grace that run through Terrence Malick's latest:
Herein lies Malick’s true genius: As The Tree of Life ends and we file out of the theater, we are left—if our legs and our minds aren’t too numb from all those gasses and Cretaceous creatures milling about—contemplating not only creation but also creators. On the former front, Malick is a committed Catholic, and he bravely surrenders his characters to higher powers. On the latter front, he is far more radical. His quote from Job isn’t accidental. Read it before you’ve seen the movie, and it’s a Catholic exhortation on man’s eternal dependence on God’s good grace. Read if after, and it’s almost a Jewish teaching, shedding light not on man’s wretchedness but on God’s: Just as man cannot know the creator, the creator can never really share man’s earthly delights and is condemned to eternity in a lonely celestial prison cell.
Perhaps it was partly the huge caffeinated drink I consumed during the film, but I walked through the streets of New York afterward with a heightened sense of the objects and gestures around me, similar to way the film lingered on the minutia of everyday life, and I felt a little more connected to the world. As a non-religious person, watching The Tree of Life was the closest I've come to prayer or meditation in a while.
One need only shut oneself in a closet and begin to think of the fact of one’s being there, of one’s queer bodily shape in the darkness (a thing to make children scream at…), of one’s fantastic character and all, to have the wonder steal over the detail as much as over the general fact of being, and to see that it is only familiarity that blunts it.
He connects James to Terrence Malick's "Tree Of Life":
James Martin, S.J. expounds on the religion implicit in two recent films, Terence Malick's "Tree Of Life" and “Of Gods and Men," which is based on the true story of martyred monks in Algeria in the 1990s: [B]oth “Of Gods and Men” and “Tree of Life” turn our gaze to small things of great and … Continue reading Cinema As Prayer
