u/DuwapDoDat

I recently rewatched this film for a second time and I gotta say it holds up on rewatch even better than I expected, in fact I gave it higher rating than on my first watch. it's a very intricately crafted film that has intentional subtle allegories and symbolism that I didn't catch first time. here is my in length review from letterboxd that is my interpretation of this film, it's little messy I had to get my thoughts out quickly so I wrote it at 3 am lol but I stand by this review and would like to hear your thoughts what you think about this film.

spoilers ahead, please be warned, if you haven't watched it I can't recommend it enough

no other movie has shown depressive and hopelessness state and bleakness of what future holds for youth as well as blue spring did. you have all these characters that at one glance seem very different from one another but most of them have one thing in common, they are lost, unguided and completely doomed to fail in life.
"what do you wanna become when you grow up ?" the most recurring and worn-out but nevertheless relevant question one can ask to children comes up in this movie quite a lot and I think it's trying to highlight the pressure that's placed on young children to constantly deliver in life, whether it's exams, baseball or anything else.Toyoda is trying to make us sympathize with the characters with this statement and I'd be lying if I said it's not working.

on the rewatch I'm starting to see all these little details and symbolism at work that imo makes this movie stand out. for example Kujo is someone that's unafraid of death and completely lost the plot in life ,literally. he's just as directionless as all the other kids but he's the one that has nothing to lose, that's why in the beginning he wins that clap contest which in the result crowns him as a boss. he has pretty much everything kid his age at that school could have ever wanted but he's still depressed and unhappy. the reason being he has no idea what he wants do, this is also juxtaposed by baseball guy that goes around running on the field screaming "Akira high let's go, let's go" and some other dude with caterpillars, about which Kujo says "People who know what they want... they scare me". this aimless and purposeless mindset drives these characters to the edge of collapse, Kujo is just someone that has nothing to lose and in the absence of fear that's where he draws his confidence and mental strength from, that's the sole reason he became boss of the gang.

you have Aoki on the other hand that has not completely lost it yet, because he has Kujo, he looks up to him, Kujo is his existential compass that guides him to be someone he needs to be in order to be his worthy sidekick. but when Kujo rejects him, he too morphs into someone that has nothing to lose and is just as aimless and purposeless as Kujo. this proves my point in last scene when we see that painting that Kujo draw in the beginning of the film, now Aoki did the same painting. I think it's an indication of Aoki becoming the same type of person Kujo was when he first won that clap contest, his main goal becomes to surpass Kujo, hence the final clap contest scene.

in the last scene we see Kujo's shadow next to that giant thing that's drawn on the roof and it's one of the best closing shots I've ever seen. in this last shot we see Kujo's shadow getting dwarfed by this big giant shadow and I think it signifies that despondency, dejection and unknown state of future rules over this characters and their lives and it completely drives them to do all this violent acts towards each other. they are driven by instinct to do harm to person, objects and to themselves, it's a very hyperbolic expression of depression but make no mistake, Blue Spring delivers one of the most impactful statement amidst similar contemporary films.

side note: I noticed this one interesting detail, there is one guy in a class who's constantly sleeping. so during classes, lunchtimes and breaks he's still sleeping and when school's over he runs out the gate and off he goes, he's rushing, he's rushing to get somewhere, but where ?.
I mean think about it, the guy sleeps all day and when he wakes up everything is over, he missed his favorite class, he missed the chance to talk to the girl he liked or to a friend he wanted to have. I think Toyoda being genius he is, he's using this character to tell us, we let time pass by and when we move we're always behind the schedule, we always try to race against the clock not knowing we didn't even start the race..

just like the title says, it's the greatest film I've ever seen but for life of me I couldn't tell you why, it's almost like all the words escape me and I have only the "Pathos" that's left.

after re-watching the film for 2nd time and now with director's cut, I can convincingly say this is the most gorgeous, thought-provoking and transcendental cinema that has ever graced the screen and the crazy thing is this film just simply goes beyond conventional boundaries of the art, it doesn't fall into any criteria when it comes to rating or even reviewing movie and therefore it's something you can only experience, not decipher and dissect it like we do with other movies, I feel like Malick intended it this way.

The Tree of Life is as abstract and directionless as movie can get but with incredible visual story-telling skills of Malick, the way he sets up everything in his films, he can have minimal dialogue in the movie ( although the most spoken words in his films are monologues tbh ) and create the impact so huge that you would think it wouldn't be possible without some kind of build-up and dialogue heavy scenes where each character is fleshed out, which is usually the case and the characteristic of the great film, but no, Malick does everything so uniquely and he is simply operating from his own world. it's almost like the vibe is set by cinematography, soundtrack, camera placement (all those methodical devices Malick uses) and when characters start talking, even from minimal interactions and dialogue you can still feel emotions oozing, one would think the movie like this would come off dreadfully pretentious, instead what you get is an immersive sublime experience that doesn't hide anything and furthermore invites you to be part of it.

as for the meaning behind it, I'm not sure I did grasp all the hidden symbolism in film, as far as I know this is very personal film for Malick, I read somewhere that Malick's brother died by suicide when he was young which is basically what took place in "The Tree of Life". to me "The Tree of Life" is meditative look and study on anything from creation of life to childhood trauma and family relations and how Interconnected we are with pretty much everything even if we seem to be just a speck of dust in this universe. it might come off bit corny but with the universe creation scene I feel like Malick is saying "You are the universe" to audience, that notion for me is also reinforced when Jessica Chastain's character has this monologue where she ask "what are we to you" and immediately solar explosion happens and the "creation" commences. the film of course has some depressing moments but it seems to be ultimately optimistic, in the ending Sean Penn walks into afterworld where he meets his mother, father and brothers. the film definitely pushes the idea for forgiveness, reconciling with your past and loving one another (family mainly but not neccesarily) despite all the hardships you're facing, this is also reinforced by quote "only way to be happy is to love". in the end you have a film that's bigger than pretty much anything imo, it's constantly and abundantly loaded with meaningful implicit messages, many of those messages may get lost due to subtlety because The Tree of Life never tries to stress its concepts like most movies, I've never seen existential film like this that touches on basically everything without overstaying it's welcome. this is how I interpret "The Tree of Life" but like I said I'm sure many stuff flew over my head or escaped my attention so I'd like to ask everyone's interpretation of this film, what you guys think about this film and what it's ultimately trying to say in your opinion ?

this is the best film I've ever laid my eyes on and I'm not sure if I'll see anything better in future, this is also one of those films that I gotta make life-time commitment to see it in theater.