If not the most beautiful film ever made, it’s easily one of them. The painterly, ruralistic images of Terrence Malick’s film are astonishing. But too many seem to qualify this movie as only being pertinent for it’s cinematography; while there isn’t nearly enough credit given to its story. A meditation - with Malick is there any other kind? - on money, love and life and the importance of all three. Richard Gere stars as Bill (and in typical Malick fashion he probably had a page’s worth of dialogue to work with), a factory worker who in the haste of a fight kills a man. When he realizes what he’s done, he flees with his young sister Linda and his girlfriend Abby in tow. They hop a train and start referring to Abby as his other sister, as Linda says "to avoid questions." The three of them end up on a Texas wheat farm, one with a gothic mansion on the hill, a symbol of the life that Bill so desperately longs for: wealth, money, stability. Once there, the owner of the mansion (Sam Shepard), a man Bill has overheard has less than a year with which to live, starts to take a liking to Abby... and Bill pushes her towards him, thinking they can exploit the situation to set them all for life. It's an Indecent Proposal-like storyline, told by an artist and it has a romantic quality as seen through the eyes of the younger sister. Only a child could highlight the good times and the bad, told mostly through its voiceovers, with a sweet and naive degree they alone seem to see so perfectly.
No comments:
Post a Comment