- Also Known As:
- Unknown
- Year:
- 2012
- Country/ies:
- US
- Predominant Genre:
- Drama
- Author(s)/Director(s):
- Terrence Malick
- Outstanding Performance(s):
- None.
- Premiss:
- After falling in love, two lovers face problems and their church’s pastor struggles with his faith.
- Theme(s):
- Alienation
- Christianity
- Emotional repression
- Loneliness
- Original Sin
- Political Correctness
- Sexual Repression
- White culture
- White guilt
- White supremacy
- Similar (in Plot, Theme or Style) to:
- Eclisse
- Over the Edge
- Review Format:
- DVD
White Despair
A once-great filmmaker now brought down low to the depths of mediocrity by his inability to grasp the fact that Whites have no deep culture, so that their constant striving for religious significance (instead of spiritual & cultural fullness) leads - ultimately - to pretension, self-loathing and existential despair.
As with Terrence Malick’s previous Tree of Life, we are presented here with lost souls striving for a oneness that is really a combination of self-delusion, self-obsession and fear-of-life, as such. The narrative is less important than the emotions and ideas presented; making this almost a piece plotless poetry. Rather than striving for something bigger than themselves, Whites struggle to contain everything within themselves and make themselves the biggest thing of all in which to believe. A lot of the details of human relationships are presented but none of the Whys and the Wherefores.
If Christianity is a laxative for emotional constipation, then Whites are in real trouble. There is no real explanation for why Whites are like this, only the inevitable consequences of an empty culture: No wonder Whites have the highest suicide, divorce, alcoholism and drug-abdication rates! Eclisse is a much better look at the materialism of White culture than this; Over the Edge a much better dramatic exploration of the emotional aridity of the White suburbs.
Copyright © 2014 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute this posting in any format; provided mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved.
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