Readers' reviews: The Tree of Life and reductionism

The Tree Of Life. Photograph: Allstar

Is this some sort of a joke?" Is what some sort of a joke, socialsurgeon? "This film was complete and utter self-absorbed masturbation. American faux-angst, faux-reflection, emotionally-thin bullshit … The sighs of boredom, fidgeting and deflated expectation culminated in cinemagoers at the Curzon Soho today leaving with barely the will to live." Ah, you must be talking about Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life, recipient of five whole stars from an enraptured Peter Bradshaw last week. Joining socialsurgeon in the You what? camp was jeromenewton: "I think in his desperate search to make the perfect transcendental film, Malick is using a bigger and bigger canvas and taking longer and longer to say less and less. There is nothing in this film that isn't intimated with greater subtlety, sadness, and a truer sense of the sublime in his first three films."

The Tree of LifeProduction year: 2011Country: USACert (UK): 12ARuntime: 138 minsDirectors: Terrence MalickCast: Brad Pitt, Dalip Singh, Fiona Shaw, Hunter McCracken, Jackson Hurst, Jessica Chastain, Joanna Going, Kari Matchett, Laramie Eppler, Sean Penn, Tye SheridanMore on this film

Given the stately pace at which Malick's films move, one might have expected plenty of comments along those lines. In fact, most who visited the thread beneath the review seemed awestruck by the film. "Just back from watching it, and still trying to gather my thoughts after one of the most profound cinema-going experiences of my life," wrote funknoir. "I realise that it won't have the same effect for most – out of the 30something people in the cinema, six walked out well before the end – but I had to sit through the credits to compose myself … I'm still trying to process why I responded to it." (Walking out seems to be a widespread reaction, if Faversham's observation was anything to go by: "Roughly 20 people of roughly 150 in the cinema walked out. I understand but I disagree. People were laughing at the end, too.")

"I was, oddly enough, reminded of Ozu watching it, even though the technique couldn't be [more] different," reckoned PhilipD. "The same centring on ordinary human experience as central to our experience of the wider universe. I've no idea if it is as profound as some think – there were moments when I felt Malick was pulling our collective leg (did he really mean some of the metaphors to be that obvious?). But it is film-making of an ambition that makes nearly every other film made recently seem small and puny."

Your views on The Tree of Life never descended into the "it's cool" v "it sucks" reductionism that Anne Billson complained about in her column last week. In a heartfelt post, Smith101 saw it as part of a wider trend: "It is the increasing binarisation of society that computerisation has produced: Yes/No, Like/Don't Like, Left/Right, Democrat/Republican, Accept Friend/Not Now, Atheist/Religious. There is less and less room for nuanced opinion as our manner of expressing ourselves become reduced to trite soundbites (Twitter), our attention is drowned in a flood of trivial information (the web) and personal judgments are reduced to bullet-point-styled multiple-choice answers for ease of expression (feedback, polls, etc) … As everything becomes infantilised, so do our responses."

Several readers noted the defensiveness of high-culture aficionados in cultural debates, and suggested they can be the most reductive of all. SouthgatesNose explained: "It's a convoluted bit of reasoning: Pop music is frivolous and superficial > people who like it are dumb > I don't like it > I'm superior to these poor fools > I have cultivated taste and discernment > you're suitably impressed right? > no?! > you're a robot cretin, programmed by the mass media > did I mention I'm better than you? Chav. In other words, it's a nasty piece of snobbery which is utilised to advertise the ostensibly positive aspects of someone's personality."

Or you could just take the view of madiguana, and turn Anne's words back on herself: "This blog sucks!" Oh, you prankster.

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