Saw Days of Heaven, a typically fraught Terrence Malick film. It follows a family of tramps in the 1910s (I think,) moving from farm to farm, doing odd jobs. The mother and father aren't married and their daughter smokes. She also narrates the film in childish almost-poetry and in a husky voice. At last they hit on a farm where the sickly farmer takes a liking to the mother and asks her to marry him. The tramps decide it won't hurt anything to pretend for a while. These people are predatory and parasitic, but you can't bring yourself to hate them. Malick's films always take place in a world that is suffused with tenderness and compassion. Even vengeance (when it comes) is tinged with regret, even death has its beauty.
The film oscillates between and marries moments of giant, impassive beauty and delicate intimacy. When the blessing over the harvest is made, you can feel the warm-cool air and the golden glow of sunset. Then the camera pans onto endless fields of rippling wheat, dramatic clouds hanging over the horizon. It's beautiful. The whole film is beautiful. The actors are beautiful, the scenes are beautiful, even the climactic scene where the farmer sets fire to his crops in an apocalyptic purge of all parasites, even that has its terrible beauty.
Needless to say, I was quite taken by this film. Malikc's films have a tendency to either entrance me or put me to sleep. They are lulling and gentle, a nice break from the aggressive absurdity I've been watching lately.
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