'VOYAGE OF TIME - IL CAMMINO DELLA VITA' - TERRENCE MALICK torna ancora sul 'leit Motiv' cosmogonico di nascita e morte dell'Universo. Torna anche BRAD PITT, questa volta in tandem con EMMA THOMPSON, come voci narranti
Da Venezia 73. - Dal 3 Marzo - PREVIEW in ENGLISH by Owen Gleiberman (www.variety.com)
(Voyage of Time: Life's Journey; USA/FRANCIA/GERMANIA 2013; Documentario drammatico; 90'; Produz.: Sophisticated Films/Wild Bunch/Plan B Entertainment/IMAX/Sycamore Pictures; Distribuz.: Double Line)
Musica: Simon Franglen (compositore) e Hanan Townshend
Fotografia: Paul Atkins
Montaggio: Rehman Nizar Ali e Keith Fraase
Casting: Sarah Dowling
Scheda film aggiornata al:
17 Marzo 2022
Sinossi:
In breve:
Un'analisi della nascita e della morte dell'universo.
Short Synopsis:
An examination of the birth and death of the universe.
Commento critico (a cura di OWEN GLEIBERMAN, www.variety.com)
Terrence Malick has made a reverent and spectacular IMAX nature documentary that's suffused with cosmic beauty, and with a little too much cosmic indulgence.
The bottom of the sea, the top of the sky, the swirling psychedelic gasses of outer space, the writhing protoplasm of inner life: When youâre gawking at images like these and they cast a spell of majestic awe, the images need no other justification, and âVoyage of Time: Lifeâs Journeyâ is full of them. Written and directed by Terrence Malick, the film is a mystic love poem to the unfathomable splendor of the natural world â which, if you get close enough to it, is out of this world. The version of âVoyage of Timeâ that premiered tonight at the 73rd Venice International Film Festival is 90 minutes of spectacularly beautiful nature-ific eye candy. It was shot, however, as an IMAX film, and when it
opens next month on IMAX screens, the version that plays there will be only 40 minutes long. (The feature-length version will be released in select international markets starting next year.)
That, make no mistake, is a good thing. âVoyage of Timeâ has too many spellbinding images to count, but as a movie itâs just okay. Itâs exactly what it sounds like â essentially an expanded version of the cosmic prologue from Malickâs âThe Tree of Life.â But that sequence seduced you with its trippy splendor, presented the entire formation of the Earth, and turned that into a heavy contemplation of a higher powerâŚall in 20 minutes.
In âVoyage of Time,â more of this becomes less â not because the film is boring (it glides by), but because itâs at once captivating and diffuse, a grab-bag of wonder set against a narration of solemn quasi-banality read by Cate Blanchett, with interwoven shots of
people from around the planet, most of them photographed with a cell-phone camera (the new equivalent of grainy shaky 16mm), which doesnât add up to much because these sequences feel arbitrary and vaguely didactic. A montage of American homeless people; an Israeli wedding; a ceremony in a rural Asian town square that involves the ritual slaughter of water buffalo. These sequences tend to sap the filmâs momentum (they make it sag), and thatâs one reason it loses power as it goes along. âVoyage of Timeâ is like a more contemplative, fragmented, throw-everything-at-the-wall version of âKoyaanisqatsiâ with narration by Rod McKuen.
These days, when everything is divided into oppositional tribes, two camps that are most definitely not speaking to each other are the Creationists and those who believe in evolutionary science. But Terrence Malick, as a film artist, is like a walking truce between those two points of view. Heâs a New
Age Christian sentimentalist who makes explicitly religious movies (more and more, theyâre about talking to God), and the theme of âVoyage of Timeâ is that thereâs a Creator, and he has created life, and that is a splendid thing, but we cannot know his grand plan. Here, though, as in âThe Tree of Life,â Malick presents a vision of the cosmos thatâs essentially âscientificâ: the brilliantly multi-colored oozing waves of galactic light matter, the otherworldly species under the sea that suggest rungs on the evolutionary ladder.
A vast team of visual-effects artists worked on âVoyage of Timeâ (led by Dan Glass, the visual effects supervisor), and part of whatâs captivating about the movie is that itâs hard to tell where the effects leave off and the natural photography begins. The celestial visions of outer space were, for the most part, created, and Malick orchestrates them like a painter of light and
gravity â theyâre like something on a Sistine Chapel ceiling that moves. But were all of them created? Much of the staggering nebula look like actual telescopic images, and when the film is under the sea, gazing at some creature that looks for all the world like an octopus with tentacles made of Romaine lettuce, we think, âIs that thingâŚreal?â The same goes for hellishly billowing volcano smoke and shots of fragmented glacier ice. The confusion is intentional. Malick is telling us that nature will always be the ultimate special effect.
You might say that Malickâs philosophy in âVoyage of Timeâ is a version of âintelligent design,â yet somehow that phrase sells it short. He sees Godâs touch in the glory and strangeness of every natural surface â a flower of extraordinary delicacy whose outer petals look like a wedding dress and whose inner petals look like sharkâs teeth, or jellyfish
pulsating with such diaphanous synchronization that we canât help but have the feeling that thereâs something purposeful about them. The message of the images in âVoyage of Timeâ is that if youâre searching for God, you need do little more than cast your eye over everything on earth.
The filmâs narration, unfortunately, is of a less intelligent design. Itâs meant to be incantatory, a poem of sacramental inquiry, with Blanchett speaking to the higher power of nature, to the very spirit of life, whom she personifies as âMotherâ (howâs that for ancient and post-feminist at the same time?), asking Her questions that have no answer: âWho are you, life giver? Light bringer?â A little of this goes a long way, especially when, half an hour later, Blanchett is still at it, saying things like âAll life. Giver of good. Creating yourself. In ever-changing shapes. You give. Without asking.â Or the slightly
perplexing âWho am I to you? You devour yourself, only to give birth to yourself again.â I kept waiting for Blanchett to add, âIâm here till Tuesday. And are you, life giver?â If an IMAX nature movie is going to turn into a prayer, it should be one thatâs a bit more varied.
Making a film that has the contemporary aspect of a planetarium show is, in its way, a deeply cool and populist thing to do, and âVoyage of Timeâ is likely to connect with audiences in a way that the blurry poetic narratives Malick has been making of late â âKnight of Cups,â âTo the Wonderâ â have not. âThe Tree of Lifeâ was a masterpiece, because it wedded visual poetry to masterfully staged scenes. It was filmmaking, not dithering, and it proved that Malick could indeed find a form for his metaphysical obsessions. He finds a form in
âVoyage of Time,â but if he continues down this path, it would be nice to see him shake off a little of the excess mysticism and make a nature movie whose final effect is an honest âWow!â rather than a semi-enraptured âHmmm.â