This is one of the most experimental movies you will see in all of 2011. Maybe even after. It's filled with scenes that could be interpretted as religious imagery, but mostly follows the story of the eldest son of a family growing up in the 50s in Waco, Texas.

This is unlike any movie you have ever seen before. It's slow to start and through minimal dialogue shows the progressing life of a young kid growing up in the 1950s and even into adulthood. It plays out like a long montage sequence to me, for a long time, but a story is there. It doesn't focus too much on any one thing for too long, but still manages to get a progressing story going with little dialogue and hints here and there of sinister changes within the eldest son.

As much as the film focuses on this family(90 minutes+) you can still watch it and feel like they had little to do with the plot at all. One reviewer I read said that it was "a view of humanity through the eyes of the Universe", which isn't a stretch at all when you see this.

There is a lot of Voice Over dialogue, whispered and spoken, that help you make sense of the what's going on. The family focus seems to be on the loss of a son in the family and them questioning God, where he is, who he is, and what he is, in their own lives. The scope this film is trying to reach is far bigger than the family though and at least a 10 minute sequence is done somply to show the creation of life and Earth with Voice Overs every now and then to make it make some kind of sense.

It is not easy to follow and requires paying attention to get what's going on. This isn't a one-point plot or obvious movie like Crank or The Expendables, but something you will have to watch, think, then comment on later, as I'm doing now.

I first heard of this film in June while I was in Toronto hanging out with Alexz Johnson and her crew. She joked "Tell so and so what The Tree of Life is about." Turns out it REALLY is hard to explain. Her lead guitarist also told me I have no business making a Top 10 List of 2011 films without seeing THIS movie. After seeing it, I think he's right. Where it will rank on my list, I don't know, but it's an art flm that definitely should be seen.

Ths is just one you're going to have to see.

Notable stars: Brat Pitt & Sean Penn.

The Flaming Schnitzel wrote:

I saw it and thought it was stupid. It couldn't hold my attention. It just seemed to me like another one of those artsy, experimental films that just leaves you going "..............O_o?"

I think that's exactly what it is Schnitzel Which isn't a bad thing, we get so many formulaic films from Hollywood year after year seeing one go out of the box can be refreshing and show you a new way to look at the medium and what it can do.

I had to take at least 24 hours after watching this movie to really get some kind of grip on what I thought about it.

I think it's worth the watch though can be hard to follow.