Tree of Life

This movie, honestly, really takes effort to watch. You have to work to appreciate it, and I'm not surprised to hear that some people had difficulty with it; the plot doesn't exactly have you sitting on the edge of your seat. What really makes the movie is not necessarily the storyline, or even the pretty pictures in-and-of themselves. I think that the reason I love this movie is because it makes me aware of something in life that I may not have noticed before. It is shot in such a way that makes you feel like the characters are real people, and the circumstances that occur actually have deep relevance to our lives. On the other hand, the long drawn-out sequence of beautiful scenes from nature, the non-linear plot, and the ambiguous ending all make you feel like there is so much about life that you don't know. Somehow, this director manages to combine the two in a way that at least has the potential to leave you both satisfied and awestruck.

God shows up all throughout the movie. The most obvious way is through the natural phenomena that are so beautifully presented. You just can't help but see an artist at work in it all - and I'm not just talking about the people who made the movie. Nature itself speaks of God. But this isn't the only place God shows His face; even in the tense, unpleasant family interactions you can tell that God is still at work. All the quiet, whispering thoughts that you hear from the mind of the boy are directed at God. The hard times do not force God out of the picture. Instead, God is all the more present as one who can be trusted with power over all situations. Even when the boy is asking God to kill his father, the prayer is still directed at God. Consequently, you feel that people are intensely significant in relation to God, if they can have that kind of intimate conversation with Him.

Another thing that I got out of this was the comparison of the way of nature and the way of grace. The describes the way of nature as ruthless, unrelenting, and selfish, while the way of grace is loving, self-sacrificial, and forgiving. This is brought up at the beginning and is not directly mentioned throughout the rest of the movie; however, you can definitely see how these two ways play out in the family. The father is shown to tend towards the way of nature, establishing his authority very harshly and finding his identity in power. On the other hand, the mother is almost idolized by the boy. She is the very example of grace, loving her boys and even her husband despite all of his unpleasant behavior. Eventually you see the father humble himself and recognize his mistakes, turning towards the way of grace. This leaves you with hope, feeling that grace will win in its battle with nature.

The movie is not necessarily Christian, in that it doesn't really promote Jesus or the other religious aspects of Christianity. However, I think we shouldn't be afraid of looking for and finding the many elements of truth that the movie has. Honestly, I would rather not have to label any movie as Christian or non-Christian, because the Christian ones sometimes fail to live up to such a label, and the non-Christian ones can show you the truth of God in a very powerful way. I think the best approach is to identify the parts of a movie that ring true with what the Gospel teaches, and also learn to discern exactly where that truth stops and Satan's idolatry begins. It's a terribly exhausting process, but it is so worth it.