Time, Eternity, and Memory in Malick's The Tree of Life

Where Time Resides in The Tree of Life

In Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life, life and eternity flow into and out of one another. Time is sensed in moments, fragments, memories, and dreams. What does the film say about where time resides? Is it something that exists only in the imagination? Is it real, fleeting? Is it unreal when juxtaposed with the eternal — if that is even real? The film does a good job of raising these questions while leaving it entirely open to the viewer to make of all the sensations and impressions what they will. The film appears to suggest, ultimately, that time resides in nature, but that there is something that comes after — when time runs out — something called eternity. On this side of the grave, we may have fleeting intimations of eternity: a touch, a sound, an impression of beauty, a sense of grace, a spiritual encounter.

Time is witnessed in the spoken word, the shadow, the passing of days and seasons, of years and of life itself — gone yet not forgotten. Yet things that exist outside of time, like eternity and the elusive soul, spirit, or God that seems to haunt the characters — viewing them from afar like the setting sun stealing glimpses through the branches of a tree at the end of day — suggest a space separate from time. Time seems to reside in experience and in the mind, yet to be unreal, ultimately. The heart yearns for more; time is constantly running out, and the heart seems to cry out in pain. Thus, the film opens with the announcement of the untimely passing of a son. The parents are struck with grief. Another son reflects on their pain, looking back from another decade — contemporary time. He thinks back to his childhood, and later to his early adulthood when news of his brother's death arrived. He thinks of his parents older then, and again when they were younger, less stricken by age, care, grief, and pain.

Memory, Faith, and the Flow of Time

He thinks on and on, and we slip into his memory to see his childhood in fine detail — moment after moment of happiness, searching, sorrow, and suffering. Time, full of moments, swirls around us, all of it accompanied by wonderful scores — Respighi, Smetana — the memories filling us with a sense of wonder, of life, of happiness and joy, yet at the end of it all, time runs out. Credits roll. We leave the experience with a sense of longing. The movie hints at something permanent on the other side — beyond the here and now — but how to get there, how to hope for it, how to believe in it, how to find it: that is the question. What we know is that time resides with us, ticking, every tick seemingly reminding us that our days are running out. The clock bids us to hurry. The film suggests that time is something by which we can profit — by doing good deeds, by lending a helping hand, by forgiving and asking forgiveness, by showing love when it is most difficult to do. Through these steps, one can transcend time. That, perhaps, is the greatest point of the film: the way to a happy eternity is through some transcendental spirit.

Indeed, time fades in the face of the faith articulated by the mother, and it is called to attention by the action expressed by both parents. Lessons become buried in the mind, unearthed or recalled by a single flicker of light in the imagination sparking a recollection. Time seems almost like a messenger from eternity — a whisper from nature and from something within, a kind of inner voice or question, something innate yet elusive. The film is like a meditation on where time resides, because it is really this idea of time — of time being up, that is, of death — that stirs up the very conflict at the heart of the film: What are we? Where are we going? What are we doing? The adult reflects on the child; the child experiences an awakening. He prays kneeling at his bed at night, yet inside his inner thoughts he asks, "Who are you? Are you watching me?" Time, life, death — what is it, what does it mean? Is it real, or a figment of the imagination? Life itself seems bound up in the blurring of reality and imagination, as the film bounces between childhood and adulthood, a random moment triggering a memory: a life, a death, a love, a loss of innocence, a restoration of grace, a vision of the afterlife — which can only be achieved by way of belief.

All in all, Sean Penn's character looks backward to his childhood to find his way back to that belief — that innocent belief which he questioned as a boy but ultimately came to accept and embrace. He comes to feel that time is a ladder to the clubhouse of eternity, its steps composed of acts of hope, faith, and love. These are subtle revelations, presented almost impressionistically. The viewer soars through time while watching the film, from the very first moments of creation to the very last, and finally to the shores of eternity, where all moments are present at once. There is, for instance, the startlingly sublime juxtaposing of old hands with young hands — the old becoming young in a flash, as mother and child meet in eternity, age becoming ageless. It is a brilliant visualization of eternity as a kind of complete or total presence of all time, wherein all time past is present, as in a T.S. Eliot poem.

Works Cited

Malick, Terrence, dir. The Tree of Life. Fox Searchlight, 2011.