To The Wonder

To The Wonder is the latest cinematographic masterpiece of Emmanuel Lebezki and director Terrence Malick, further developing the abstract style that made their Tree Of Life so memorable back in 2011. Let’s make no mistake about it, this is an art film. And it’s an art film that requires considerable patience because of the ubiquity of its style: emotions and character traits are all conveyed with movement and facial expressions only, with minimal dialogue and maximum insinuation. It does raise an interesting question as to what we, the audience, consider a movie to be or even art – if great art is supposed to challenge accepted conventions, then this surely succeeds. Although that kind of thinking is usually dismissed as pretentious twaddle, it is certainly a visionary avenue of filmmaking that Malick is heading down.

The story itself focusses on Neil (Ben Affleck) and his love triangle with Marina (Olga Kurylenko) and Jane (Rachel McAdams). Marina is the playful French sophisticate that Neil meets on his European travels, ultra feminine in profile and laissez-faire in attitude; and Jane, the all-American country gal and Neil’s former beau. He spends the film flitting between the two without ever saying much at all, playing the gruff silent male type. Tensions and passions steadily build up until everything fractures around a sensuous infidelity scene – something that Malick’s style is particularly adept at evoking – between Marina and a rough handyman/carpenter. The central theme is Neil’s personal confusion, a man trying to rediscover his identity. Does he prefer the mystical wintry charms of Paris and Mont Saint-Michel or the sun-kissed horizons of rural and suburban Texas? The loss of identity is a trait shared by Marina after her move to America, and Father Quintana the priest (Javier Bardem), but they are questions that are never truly resolved and all suffer in their own personal maelstroms of loneliness. The character of Quintana, and the whole religious element in this film, seems conspicuous by its incongruity amongst the tender folds of romantic drama that unfolds in every other scene. As good an actor as Bardem certainly is, his scenes do rather distract from the central plotline and elongate the film unnecessarily – this frustrates. Indeed there could be heard, so the story goes, titters of laughter at the film’s premier showing at Venice when Quintana first appeared.

In truth though there is something cold about To The Wonder, an emotional vacuum that isn’t present in The Tree Of Life. The same visual techniques are used, perfected even, but the trail of filmic metaphor breadcrumbs that Malick leaves for his audience to collect are simply not as vivid or as interesting as they were in the picture of 2011. For example: The Tree Of Life puts love in the context of the formation of planets, waterfalls and the universe; To The Wonder sees Olga Kurylenko moodily flouncing around in a forest tediously touched by autumn, or a generic field of long grass. There’s no contest there surely. By the final few scenes, the conjunction between emotion and nature becomes tiresome – YouTube is screaming out for some bright spark to mercilessly parody Malick’s directorial use of body language – and after almost two hours it can become a little trying. Despite the grievances Terrence Malick’s enigmatic persona and mercurial artistic talent will always draw the critical eye; and in this period of uncharacteristically Malickian productivity (two further projects are expected in the next couple of years, which compares favourably to the 20 year wait from Days of Heaven to The Thin Red Line) the question of how he will develop his style will soon be answered.