Transcending traditional filmmaking and narrative, Malick skilfully transforms the power of film with his unique tapestry of sound and image, where what we experience dissolves into a symphony of visual splendour, superbly underscored emotionally by Hanah Townsend's haunting music and Daniel Lanois' sound design.
In this romantic drama Ben Affleck delivers a great performance as a man torn between two loves: an European woman who came to United States to be with him (Olga Kurylenko), and an old flame he reconnects with from his hometown (Rachel McAdams), exploring how love and its many phases and seasons - passion, sympathy, obligation, sorrow, indecision - can transform, destroy, and reinvent lives.
Malick allows us to feel film and from his profound opening narrative in which the lovers declare that "Love makes us one: I in you, you in me", flows an abundance of insight and meaning that allows us to reconnect with our humanness and opens a soulful window into our fragile humanity where relationships (and people) are as brittle as porcelain dolls.
With actors like Colin Farrell, Christopher Plummer and Christian Bale in A New World, Brad Pitt, Sean Penn and Jessica Chastain in The Tree of Life, and now Affleck, Adams, Kurylenko and Javier Bardem on To the Wonder, Malick never allows the power of these celebrated actors to dominate the story or compromise his artistic expression. He sets his actors free within each frame, perfectly capturing the essence of their characters, their emotional journey, and the intimate relationships that impact on the themes of love and redemption and the world of the story.
To the Wonder is not only about the love between people, but our love and care for the world we live in. When Bardem's character of a Catholic priest who grapples with his own dilemmas, harbouring doubts about his vocation and no longer feels the ardour he knew in the first days of his faith, discovers that a smelting operation in town is polluting the soil and water, and threatening the health of future generations, his passion for the survival of his neighbours offers another heart-breaking journey into our polluted world that is dying. Death, just like love, has many faces in To the Wonder.
To the Wonder is poetry in action and stirs emotions in a profound way, without ever becoming self-indulgent or sentimental. Malick establishes a unique and respectful connection between himself as a storyteller and story maker, and his audience, his actors, as well as with the story and the many different nuances of its sensibility. In A New World we gracefully discovered new territories and cultures, with Tree of Life Malick took us into the heart of creation and the soul of a family, and with To the Wonder he gives us an exceptional opportunity to scrutinise different aspects of love, being loved, intimacy and the sanctimony of human relationships and between us and the world we live in.
When it comes to the universality of love, it is something we all crave, but somehow never fully understand or come to terms with its severe sacrifices and consummate devotion; Malick allows us to take a step into the wonder of love. He treats his subject matter delicately and with respect, and never undermines his audience. The experience of To the Wonder in all its glorious splendour is a very special love affair with storytelling at its most profound. Malick's accomplished craftsmanship will once again transform your vision of cinema and elevates the art of filmmaking.
After watching To the Wonder it is guaranteed that you will not only see the world differently, but have a different view of love and how it feeds our humanity. It might also be a great idea to re-watch A New World and The Tree of Life on DVD, and if you are a fan of Terrence Malick, also Days of Heaven and Thin Red Line.
"The film feels to me like more a memory of a life than a literal story in real time of someone's life, the way movies more commonly are," said Ben Affleck. "This pastiche of impressionistic moments, skipping across the character's life and moving in a non-linear way, mirror, in my mind, the way one remembers one's life. It's a little hypnotic and you're a little bit in a daze - it's more fluid than real life is."
To achieve this quality, Affleck and his fellow cast members immersed themselves in Malick's imagined world. The director guided them toward classic works of fiction, art, music and cinema to foster the mindset and understanding of their character. "I've learned more in the seven weeks so far on this movie than I've learned in my entire life working with other directors," Affleck said. "[Malick] really understands something that I realise now from working with him is the most important thing to understand, which is that not only can you challenge conventional wisdom, you have to make it interesting. And you have to break through your preconceived notions and what you think others' expectations are in order to make something that's unique and interesting."
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