To The Wonder: Reinvents the Wheel

      To The Wonder by Terrence Malick swirls across the wheat fields of Oklahoma and kisses Mt. St. Michel in France.  The film is by far Malick's biggest roll of the dice.  His other films are all amazing, yet easily accessible to the average moviegoer.  Here the dialogue is sparse.  And on three viewings at the theater many people have left or felt uncomfortable by the silence.  I think our current culture  and it's technological restlessness are to blame.  Thank you Mr. Malick for creating a cinematic meditative experience.  The film takes the viewer places emotionally and metaphorically. 

In looking at France under the lense of a master is beautiful.  The film reinvents the wheel of cinema in that it feels like a silent film yet the whole thing seems to be communicated through interpretative dance.  Olga Kurylenko hailing from Ukraine brings a ballet to Malick's visual symphony.  Her dance, gestures, joy, disdain, childishness, and imagination are the backbone of the film.  Ben Affleck is solid as the man whom says very little.  He tests water for contamination and in performing these functions the American soil appears polluted.  The sense of wonder and imagination that Kurylenko possesses is difficult to find domestically.  
America perhaps is jaded from beauty and dance.  Many cinema goers on opening day said things to the effect of it felt like a two hour Calvin Klein commercial.  What some fail to see is the average director could try for 10 years to get the shots of the wheat fields, industrial spaces, buffalo, evicted homes, Mt.St. Michel, Versailles, and never scratch the surface.  

Another treat for American cinephiles and global moviegoers was to see America and France both presented in the modern day.  Malick has never shot modern day and viewing an Oklahoma supermarket  and it's aisles was fascinating.  Modern day machinery at construction sites looked foreboding.  Malick has made his most personal film because it is autobiographical.  Salutations to the Sun God for allowing the director to capture such beautiful natural light.  This is the type of film that makes all the other bad movies fade to dust.