The Creation Narrative of The Tree of Life

Beautiful latest piece by Terrence Malick, The Tree of Life, rendered me literally speechless after watching it for the first time - I was barely able to close the player after the ending credits had long passed. Although I am lost for words when it comes to describing the feeling, I now know I would have made a terrible mistake had I only watched it once. Since I was so overwhelmed and elated with the movie, I had to watch with friends as well - when I finally did, the movie lost none of its might. On the contrary, since I had seen it before, I picked up more details and nuances that I had missed the first time. Some movies get boring as you watch them over and over again, because you already know the plot, the dialogs, and the individual scenes of the movie; The Tree of Life gets more and more complete as you watch it over and over again. At least that is what I experienced after watching for the third time with my parents yesterday. I thought I had already become resilient to it after two screenings - how naive of me! But I finally had a feeling of “now I have finally seen The Tree of Life.” It took me three times to pick up everything important so that I could create a complete and thorough picture the movie paints.

One of the most beautiful - and transcendent indeed, as Brett McCracken puts is - scenes of the movie narrative is the “creation scene,” following the creation and evolution of the universe and the Earth. Although one could see in it a mere Darwinian explanation of the origin of species, there are several indicators pointing to the contrary. 

Firstly, the process of creation starts with light. The universe is empty, and the only thing there is, is a ray of light. Big bang? Possibly, but there is another explanation; whenever people meet God (or Jesus) face to face in the Bible, they see a blinding light (and often even end up blind for some time). Whether it is the story of Moses on Sinai, or of Paul on his way to Damascus, one of the key characteristics of God (to the extent we are able to postulate any, that is) is his pristine, blinding light. Light, that sets the universe in motion.

After the “Big Bang” follows a rather standard interpretation of the formation of the early universe - from all the dust and matter scattered across the universe first galaxies, stars and solar systems are created, as well as first planets. The attention is thence shifted from the universe to the new-born planet Earth, which is undergoing the process of becoming habitable, the process of change from a lump of rock orbiting the Sun to the blue and green planet teeming with life. And the creation of life is the second hint we are not watching an insulting in-your-face to all creationists: when the first cells evolve in the steaming ponds and volcanic craters of Iceland (ok, the movie says nothing about Iceland, but you can be rather positive it was shot there), the respective parts of first the creation of the Earth itself, and then the evolution of life (all the weird sea creatures and dinosaurs) are separated by a sunrise.

Why here, why now? It took millions of years for the process of creation with billions of sunrises to get to this particular point, so what is so special about this one? “And there was evening, and there was morning - the fifth day” is the answer. This symbolic separation of days is another charming Genesis allegory.

As all the various species of fish and dinosaurs and birds gradually evolve, we should come back to the beginning of the movie, where the Mother says that “[t]he nuns taught us there are two ways through life: the way of nature and the way of grace...” While the way of nature is selfish and survival-of-the-fittest-esque, the way of grace is selfless, humble and forgiving. One would therefore probably think that since the way of nature is called the way it is, this would be the way all creation follows, and that we have to strive for a drastic change if we are to get to the way of grace. It sounds plausible, but then comes the “dinosaur” scene some of my friends found redundant and pointless in the movie, where one reptile is lying by the river when a second one comes, and in apparent hunt for dinner, steps on the helpless first dinosaur. But where one would expect bloodshed and a “natural” reaction of the “hunter” dinosaur, he, contrary to the way of nature, sees that his “prey” is not dangerous, and leaves him alone. Stupid move, you could say - he is not going to survive one more day in this wild state of nature. But that is not what Malick is depicting - the Fall has not happened yet, man was not expelled from Eden yet, the way of nature has not yet come to dominate our behavior. What we see here is the perfect creation, unspoiled by sin, guided by grace rather than survival.

This is how I believe Terrence Malick sees creation, and it is, if anything, more magical, mystical and biblical narrative than any other you usually come across. And when the Earth is eventually consumed by the blazing fires of the dying Sun, the life does not end for good as it does in Melancholia, rather it continues and is reborn again to a pure and perfect form it was designed to be, casting a ray of hope on the desperation and depravity of all the family members in the “1950s” part of the movie. Ten out of ten, no question.