CRAMER VS KILLOUGH | REVIEW starring Christopher Cramer and James Killough Given that Melancholia was released this past weekend, we are reposting the video review. In the video portion that is part two of yesterday's piece, there was so much to say about Lars von Trier's Melancholia that didn't make it into the review, sadly, or...
THE KILLOUGH CHRONICLES | REVIEW
by James Killough
It would not be wrong to describe Terrence Malick’s Cannes Palme D’Or-winner The Tree Of Life as a two-hour-fifteen-minute ad for a fictitious Calvin Klein “Existence” perfume, brought to you in part by the Museum of Natural History, the Pritzker Architecture Prize, and the Episcopal Diocese of Waco, Texas.
Tree is for lovers of films with no conventional plot like Baraka and Godfrey Reggio’s Qatsi series. In other words, smoke a hefty spliff, stack up on the muchie rations and prepared to murmur “wow.”
The ubiquitous walking-into-the-sunlight shot that seems to have pleased the Cannes jury so much. Step away from the shrooms, Mr. De Niro.
I wasn’t in Cannes this year, and per my earlier post it is unlikely I would have seen the rest of the films in competition even if I had been, but I can understand why awarding the Palme D’Or to this caused so much controversy. It’s beautiful, yes, but it is not great cinema by my standards. And this is coming from a huge Terrence Malick fan. It isn’t even intellectually stimulating from an esoteric spirituality point of view. But, after all those years in India and with the Sufis, I’m really jaded that way.