15 Movies From This Decade (So Far) Destined To Become Classics

6. The Tree Of Life

Rewatching Terrence Malick's sophomore feature Days Of Heaven for the first time in many years recently, I was again struck by the way in which the film distances itself from the love triangle between Richard Gere, Brook Adams and Sam Shepard's characters, preferring to see it play out from afar through the eyes of Linda Manz's character of the younger sister. With Tree Of Life, Malick takes this idea of distancing the viewer from the action much further, as Sean Penn's character reflects on his childhood growing up in Texas, his mother's nurturing love contrasting with his father's stern authoritarianism. The perspective is removed from both time and place, and it is this nod to the impressionistic nature of memory which makes Tree Of Life such a divisive movie. Malick has been accused of using his actors like props, but when they're being used to service a film by such a visionary director there's something to be said for putting cinema as an artform before the egos of a few Hollywood stars.