Film Reviews: The Tree of Life and Winter's Bone

The Tree of Life (2011, d. Terrence Malick)
The Tree of Life as a film, as a story, is an enigma. Perhaps it's an allegory of the cosmos, an allusion to the Norse myth of Yggdrasil, an experiment that delves into the grandest parts of the universe and the most microscopic origins of life. Or maybe it's a sort of artistic, nonlinear retelling of the Biblical story of Job or a representation of the Holy Trinity. It's not that this is difficult to figure out, it's that Malick gives so few clues to any of these it could be all of them, or none. And in that ambiguity lies brilliance.

Given that Malick has directed only six films since 1969, it's clear the amount of time and thought that he's put into creating the vision of The Tree of Life. Sort of divided up into "acts", Malick takes the story from the origins of the universe to the creation of Earth to the beginnings of life through the age of the dinosaurs to a neighborhood in Texas in the 1950s. The natural ("science") shots are breath-taking, and a scene with dinosaurs is surprisingly heartfelt. During the scenes shot in Texas, the natural light of day and evenings is soft and beautiful. Malick's eye for the macro- and microcosms is sharp. There is a clear sense of awe for the unstoppable force of nature.

However, the other strong emotion in the story is that of nostalgia. The word "nostalgia" has its roots in the Greek nostos (a return home) and algia (pain, grief, distress). In these scenes Malick explores the truest sense of the word nostalgia--the pain of remembering (returning to) one's childhood home. There are sweet moments--playing on the front lawn in the sprinkler, story time right before falling asleep. But the film takes a darker turn as the oldest son remembers strict discipline and even verbal abuse from his father. We see the son as an adult, still struggling with these memories and the relationships in his life.

I'm not sure if The Tree of Life has a clear plot or a well-defined ending, but for me, it wasn't necessary. The grace and beauty of the film are themselves what matter, not resolution or a happy ending. A friend warned me that this is a film more than it is a movie, which is correct, but it's still worth seeing for its absolute elegance and artistic merit.
8.5/10

Winter's Bone (2010, d. Debra Granik)
As much as The Tree of Life is a lofty film, Winter's Bone has firm roots in the hardscrabble Ozark mountains where life is sparse, difficult, and not for dreamers. The story of this film to me seems much like that of an ancient myth: a girl must find her father in order not to lose her home and her only means of caring for her invalid mother and younger brother and sister. Her journey is arduous, yet it is her burden to bear, and she refuses to give up, even when threatened with physical violence. Although her mission to find her father may not have the outcome she desired, the film does end on a hopeful note, one that I found satisfying for all her adversity.

Jennifer Lawrence's performance as the 17 year old Ree Dolly is outstanding. She's believable as a girl who has undertaken the care of her family but also as a sort of investigator determined to find out the whereabouts of her father. She's devoted and good-humored toward her brother and sister (a scene where she teaches them about hunting rifles is particularly sweet), but strong-willed and determined when it comes to her quest to find her father. She refuses to take no--or no information at all--for an answer. And in the end, her perseverance leads her to find an answer.

Winter's Bone is probably a dark film, both thematically and visually. The landscape of the Ozarks in winter is bleak and brown. But Ree's determination in the face of darkness is a light blazing her way. This is a quietly powerful film, understated but not at all lacking in an excellent story and strong emotion.
9/10

Just Stop Already! Or, You're Ruining it for the Rest of Us

This morning I saw a video blog post on one of my favorite knitting blogs where the lovely gal who runs the blog informed us followers that she and her husband are expecting their first baby. How exciting for them!

My cousin just had her first baby a few weeks ago. Friends from college are definitely having kids at an alarming rate, and two of my co-workers who are in their late 20s are also pregnant.

I'm genuinely happy for these friends and acquaintances. Adding a baby to your family is a really happy, exciting, fun event, and kids are pretty much the greatest entertainment ever (except if you've ever seen my fostercat Tasha play fetch; that trumps a kid any day).

But on behalf of those of us who are single, in their late 20s/early 30s and have no plans or desire to have kids any time soon, I'm begging you: please stop. You're making us look bad.

While I was married, the plan for my husband and I was to have kids around my age 28-30 (which, at that time was like 6 years in the future). Whenever we brought this up around my parents, they'd cry, "We're too young to be grandparents! Don't have kids yet!" And then, of course, the year I got divorced, I started hearing this from my parents: "Ohhh, all our friends have grandkids!" And it wasn't a tone of joy. It was a tone of wistfulness. And a little bit of disappointment.

To that, I now reply, "Get a freaking dog."

Look, some of us who will be turning 30 in 2012 (unless the world ends before my birthday, in which case HA HA I BEAT THE SYSTEM) and all we want to do is get drunk on a Friday night and jump around to "Jump Around" until we get that puke-y feeling and have to lay down and then get terrible hangovers in the morning that necessitate eating three Dunkin' Donuts and then watch Doctor Who all day. And we don't want to have to feel guilty about those decisions because our peers are having babies and driving Volkswagen Touaregs (yeah right, no one I know drives these) and budgeting and buying sidewalk chalk in bulk.

I'll let you in on a little secret: sometimes I want kids. And sometimes I'm like NOPE. Which is a damn good indication that I'm not ready to have a child. I'm glad I know this. I just wish that this decision (or lack thereof) didn't carry with it societal and cultural judgment that I'm somehow lazy, or too unattractive/weird/whatever to find a life partner to have kids. I'm okay with where I am in my life, and considering I'm a productive member of society, I think you can just GET OFF MY FREAKING BACK, TRADITIONAL EXPECTATIONS.

The fact that I just posted this to my blog probably makes me a little bit crazy, but you know what? That's okay, because I don't have worry that my little craziness means that someone's going to call DCFS on me. It just makes me a little bit of a crazy cat lady. And I'm okay with that, too.

Recipe: Super Easy Vegetarian Chili Mac

I don't like to cook. It's just one of the things about me that's always been true. I don't like to have to keep my eye on multiple things at once, to decide when something is cooked "enough", to either hurry up and do something or wait around for something to happen. I like to bake because baking largely consists of dumping things and mixing them together, then putting them in an oven and letting them cook til they are done. All the work happens at the same time and all the waiting happens at the same time.

But sometimes I get a certain kind of food in my head and I really have to have it.  Sunday night, I remembered chili mac. We used to cook it at the summer camp I worked at in college--it's easy, tasty, fortifies you, and you can easily make as much or as little as you want, depending on who you're feeding. But...road block. I'm a vegetarian. Usually with chili mac, you're throwing some ground beef/turkey in there. And I couldn't find any super-easy vegetarian chili mac recipes online that didn't have like 12 ingredients and required a lot of chopping and sauteeing. Not my thing. So last night I improvised and came up with this:

Super Easy Vegetarian Chili Mac
(This recipe makes enough for 2-3 hungry Sarahs. You can easily adjust it as you see fit.)


You'll need:
1/4ish white onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 can vegetarian chili (I love Amy's Kitchen brand!)
1 can stewed tomatoes
1/2ish box elbow macaroni
olive oil
shredded cheese

Start the water for the pasta a-boilin'.

Heat a little olive oil in a big skillet over medium heat. (Like, a BIG skillet. One with sides. 'Cause everything's gonna go in the skillet after you cook the veggies.) Once the OO is heated, add the onions & garlic and cook til they're softened (like 7-8 minutes).

When the water is ready, add the pasta. You'll probably only need to cook it 7-8 minutes. Once it's done, drain it and put it in a big bowl and toss it with a little OO. (The big bowl is where you'll combine everything. And tossing the pasta with the OO will keep it from sticking together.)

When the veggies are cooked, add the chili and tomatoes to the big skillet. This is just to heat it all up and mix it together, so you can turn up the heat a bit so until the chili/tomato sauce starts to bubble, then you can take it off the heat.

Add the chili/tomato/veggie mixture to the big bowl with the pasta and combine it all together.

Serve it with lots of shredded cheese (or as much as you want).

That's it! Pretty easy, huh? Let me know if you try it and if you add other things like veggies or spices!

Rabbit Hole and Grief; Palming the Rounded Stone

I just finished watching the film Rabbit Hole, a film about the relationship of a husband and wife as they cope with the death of their only child eight months earlier. It is a film that examines grief with a clarity tinged with pain, akin to the feeling of looking into clear water at the same moment a glint of sunshine blinds your eyes. Actors Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart don't shy away from the overwhelming emotion of grief that accompanies the loss of a child, and, coupled with the simple, elegant vision of the film, create a very true portrait of the weight of grief on human life. (Director John Cameron Mitchell has long been a favorite of mine, and his talent is clear in this film, a departure from his earlier, zanier works.)


Towards the end of the film, Kidman's character Becca and her mother, Nat (played excellently by Dianne Wiest), are putting away boxes in the basement. Nat reflects on her own experience of losing a child (Becca's adult brother, Arthur, to a drug overdose) and the grieving process:
At some point, it becomes bearable. It turns into something that you can crawl out from under and... carry around like a brick in your pocket. And you... you even forget it, for a while. But then you reach in for whatever reason and - there it is. Oh right, that. Which could be awful - not all the time. It's kinda...not that you'd like it exactly, but it's what you've got instead of your son. So, you carry it around. And uh... it doesn't go away. Which is...
[Becca:] Which is what?
[Nat:] Fine, actually.


Now, I know my experience with death isn't as dramatic as what's portrayed in this film. The person closest to me who has died was my grandfather, and this was nearly five years ago. He died after being being unwell for a while. I miss him a lot; there is a clear hole in our family celebrations where his booming voice and crazy stories would fit. But there is an understanding when someone dies who has lived a long and fulfilling life; there is a feeling of peace at the end and the promise of a legacy. As a Christian, I believe in life after death, and I believe there's a place beyond mortal life where my grandfather will welcome us with a big hug when we arrive someday.


But I think there is grief we don't talk about either. The end of relationships, the loss of livelihood, grief over abuse and violence that we don't discuss. We grieve for our pain, and for the persons we were "before". When my marriage ended in 2007, my pastor said to me, "No one acknowledges the grief of the end of a marriage. But there is a loss there; something has ended that you thought would be in your life forever." This grief is more difficult for others to share with you--they want to know salacious details, who's to blame, or they want to tell you that you're free to move on now. For me, this grief dwelt as guilt for a long time in my head.


The brick analogy in Rabbit Hole is a fitting one; for me, grief feels like a rounded stone that you can turn over and over in your hand. Its edges might be smoothed down, but it is still made of something that has weight and can hurt. Hurl that rock through a window and you can shatter glass. Or just hold it in your hand and it might ground you. Either way, it's still there. You can stop thinking about it for a day, a week, a month, but it will not change shape. It becomes a part of you for as long as you carry it.

New blog, take two.

So, I had to get a new gmail address. One that was more professional and less "whimsical". (Although whimsy will always be the driving force behind everything I love and everything that makes me create.) And along with that, I had to create a new blog. 


So this is it: Beauty and Terror, two battlefields between which we balance on a very precise edge. The quote is from an untitled poem by Rilke:

God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are the words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.

Embody me.

Flare up like flame
and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don't let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.