The Tree of Life - Impressive, yet profound

                                               The Tree of life by Terrence Malick is a visual treat, a meditation, the pursuit of a life from it's birth in a middle class family in Texas to  the moribund urban life. The protagonist is Jack(younger version of Sean Penn) the eldest son of O'Brien (Brad Pitt). While the story revolves around the Texas family .The plot roots from the visuals that briefly explains the evolution of life.How life evolved from specks and dots .How it rose with time and tried to invade and  predate the other. While the film opens with the scene in which the family receives a bad news as the mother loses her son.The family tries hard to cope with the ill fate it has now got with. The scenes with the evolution of life also tells us every body has his/her box of life in a large space of human existence. The young couple (Brad Pitt & Jessica) is shown in the scene following the evolution visuals .They gradually make up  a family of their own in the green suburbs of Texas. The place they are living can be inferred from the films as in peaceful outskirts in Texas away from artificial life. A particular scene in the film  opens with cherubic beauty as the frame is filled with the innocence of a sleeping baby. As the family gets some what big than before with two more children, life gets to a completely different strata. O Brien (Brad pitt)  raises his children with what can be called as a rigorous moral code but not for himself as he breaks it with such an ease before the children, while he loves his children more than anything and lives for them. While he is seen punishing his children for small mistakes he's also seen caressing them with overwhelming love and affection.  From here the film moves as the eyes and ears of the eldest son (Jack). Jack resents  at every actions of his father who tames him with his stringent rules of good living. While his father is a stubborn ,strict but loving individual, his mother is more affectionate empathetic and more permissive to every mischief of his children. While O brien  tours around the world for getting a recognition to his ideas and inventions , a short span of freedom opens before the children while they cheerfully enjoy it. They get more of their motherly love. While Jack builds up a rebellion by befriending  the children of the neighborhood throwing stones at glasses of abandoned houses, torturing animals and intruding other's privacy without them knowing it . Malick here captures the thoughts and behavior of the children with such elegance. The film is glossed by brilliant camera work and sound track that adheres to the story line perfectly. The film has a subtext all the way through till it's end.The film closes with visuals showing the end of life on earth. According to Sean Penn the script was more beautiful than what we see  in the film but in the film the visual idea has been given more emphasis which according to many critics makes the film self-absorbed.
                                                                But the film conveys many a lot with emphatic and impressive story line and photography. It's a matter of no surprise that it won the Golden Palm award in the Canne's film festival.