“An old trick in a new dress is always a pleasant change.” - Harry Houdini
Terrence Malick’s “To The Wonder” does not tell a revolutionarily original story. In fact, it revisits an age-old staple of story archetypes – of love’s genesis, of love’s lifespan, and of love’s demise. And yet, for exploring such an well known narrative arch, Malick somehow manages to make his iteration noteworthy.
Neil and Marina (Ben Affleck and Olga Kurylenko) meet and fall in love in Paris. Neil asks Marina to move back to Oklahoma with him, and she agrees; her young daughter comes along. The environmental shift highlights the first crack of their relationship’s many fault lines: Marina feels out of place and empty, though only her daughter articulates this feeling. Eventually, Marina’s visa runs out, and she goes back to Paris with her daughter, and Neil observes without protest.
Their separation physical and emotional separation is seemingly short-lived, but long enough that in the interim, Neil begins a relationship with an old acquaintance, Jane (Rachel McAdams). Back in Paris, Marina no longer has custody of her daughter and feels even more isolated in her home country. She looks to the US for a fresh start, and Neil agrees to marry her so she can get a green card. While the marriage is strictly legal, the arrangement contributes to Neil and Jane’s relationship ending.
Neil and Marina’s emotions do not reignite initially, but over time the emotions creep through cracks in the walls that each builds against one another during the interim. Love gushes forth again, though both are more sensitive to the overarching realities stacked against their relationship’s sustainability. And like all things beautiful and fragile, their relationship eventually ends, and both go their separate paths in acts of necessity.
Most movies rely heavily on dialogue to convey the passion and pain that comes with every relationship. Not Malick: here, dialogue is nearly devoid, serving as sparse anchors redirecting the current of emotions and storyline Malick’s desired endpoint. Details are quietly present, and long pauses encourage the viewer to infer pieces of information tying everything together. The subtleties and nuances of relationships are conveyed primarily through audiovisual techniques, the image compositions of cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki and musical compositions of composer Hanan Townshend meshing into a cinematic union. Few narrative facts are spoken throughout the movie, yet the film manages to flow in a manner that feels both logical and effervescent. The result is what the greatest of silent films were able to accomplish decades prior: engrossing narratives by omission of dialogue and amplification of sight and sound. Eisenstein and Chaplin would be proud.
Images of water and waves, lulling in and out, highlight the beautiful temporality of Neil and Marina’s relationship: when they are in synchrony, their love is a beautiful symphony of sorts; when they are out of synchrony, their differences come into full light, the cacophony of unhappiness exploding more and more violently each subsequent time. Additionally, juxtaposed images of sinking earth and unlimited skies that breathe of sunrises, sunsets and sweeping bird flocks further delineate Neil and Marina’s crucial differences: the former resigns to reality’s grounding, and the latter dances atop life’s singing sea.
Converse to popular convention, the most beautiful images in Malick’s film are cast in shadow, while the most ugly are seen in stark daylight. In shadow, everything is mysterious, intriguing, uncertain, undefined, and indefinite: anything and everything is possible. Blaring light serve to remind of realities at play, the fantastical replaced by fact, disillusion and despair jarringly illuminated and present. Shadows of ancient trees versus modern lawns of dead, dried grass: the differences couldn’t be more apparent.
While some viewers may want more defined answers, I appreciate Malick’s unwillingness to make the answers obvious, leaving hints with only the few spoken sentences scattered throughout.
In watching Malick’s film, I found solace in the subtleties conveyed in lieu of past grievances and emotional turmoil. I’ve learned from personal experience that when it comes to relationships, many spoken words are easily the most meaningless if they are uttered without weight. To hear “I love you” over and over again, while perhaps comforting, could also distract from less sincere current lining the lips. Intonation and body language are dead giveaways to whether or not verbal presentation is or isn’t a facade, and I’ve found that those who speak much often do so to mask their own moments of inadequateness and insincerity. More often than not, words do not fully communicate the emotions underlying a couple’s tie to one another; in fact, I find the most meaningful aspects of a relationship are much more subtle, graceful, and quieter.
A kiss on the cheek; a sideways glance; a tug of the shirt; a slight curl of the lips – subtle, small, yet more significant than a hollow “I love you” put on repeat.
This is the beauty of Malick’s audiovisual endeavor, a story where a relationship’s life is conveyed more through subtle action than dialogue could ever hope to accomplish. As a result, “To The Wonder” feels more like a memoir montage and less like an actual story pivoting on the genesis and self-destruction of a relationship.
But isn’t that how relationships work? Ultimately, emotional experiences always outlast details and dialogue in our respective memories.
“There will be many who find "To the Wonder” elusive and too effervescent. They’ll be dissatisfied by a film that would rather evoke than supply. I understand that, and I think Terrence Malick does, too. But here he has attempted to reach more deeply than that: to reach beneath the surface, and find the soul in need.“ - Roger Ebert
A special thanks to my good friend Kat, who I saw "To The Wonder” and discussed with afterwards. Our conversation greatly contributed to what I was able to articulate above.
Note to readers: I ended up omitting a lot of what I had in mind, mostly because I want to leave more substantial writing for when “To The Wonder” comes out on DVD so I can rewatch and capture screenshots to further illustrate what I’d like to discuss.
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