How entertaining? ★★★★☆
Thought provoking? ★★★☆☆ 2 September 2011
This article is a review of DAYS OF HEAVEN. |
An exchange between Bill and Linda, "I saved your life today." "How?" "I killed a shit-eating dog."
Goes to show that not everything Terrence Malick does is bereft of humour. However, the light moments are supremely rare, as the film seems on the cusp of tragedy throughout. Looking from BADLANDS to THE TREE OF LIFE, his entire work is melancholic tonally, but aesthetically downright sublime. With Kubrick and Malick you can see a painstaking attention to detail. EYES WIDE SHUT was on television the other night, and the design is extraordinary. Here there is an absence of sets, mostly a beautiful house among beautiful fields bathed in beautiful light. Hats off to the director and his two cinematographers (Nestor Almendros and Haskell Wexler) for creating moments such as a train travelling along a stilt bridge or the harvest being collected. Like an orchestra who knows each other inside out, everyone appears to be pulling in the same direction, from production designer Jack Fisk to composer Ennio Morricone. DAYS OF HEAVEN is all yellows and browns, and this new print is a must to behold. Many claim this to be the most stunning film ever made. It’s certainly up there. (You need to compare the work of Christopher Doyle on HERO and Emmanuel Lubezki with THE NEW WORLD – my favourite of Malick’s oeuvre.)
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“If you didn’t work they’d ship you right out of there. They didn’t need you. They could always get somebody else.” Linda (Linda Manz)
All this consummate style would be just grand I’m sure, but weight is added by the story. Richard Gere’s Bill is working in a factory clearly disillusioned, and one day injures or kills his boss (it’s not quite clear). He, his sister Linda, and lover Abby (Brooke Adams) flee from Chicago and end up on a farm, owned by “the farmer” (Sam Shepard). They pretend that Abby and Bill are siblings. A love triangle emerges when the taciturn and sickly farmer falls for the former. There is certainly a contrast between the vitality of three labourers and the bosses, including the unforgiving foreman. DAYS OF HEAVEN is about (no) choices, surviving and happiness; and also economics and class and socialism (Sam Shepherd’s character isn’t given a name). You could compare THE WINGS OF THE DOVE, about the less well off tricking the wealthy in love, and the consequences of that – though Bill and Abby have far fewer options than Merton and Kate.
“Nobody's perfect. There was never a perfect person around. You just have half-angel and half-devil in you.” Linda
As usual with this meditative director’s work, there is little overt moralising, or arguably there is strong moralising but portrayed through flawed characters in a contradictory way. The narration/voice-over is in all his films, here from the perspective of the young sister; and as usual is disjointed, fragmentary, infuriating, intriguing, lyrical.
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