To the WonderMarriage is the joining not just of two persons, but of two fundamental qualities within us: faith and love. These are two abstract concepts which have--and will--remain forever impossible to define with absolute objectivity. This has not stopped artists and philosophers, poets and painters, scholars and romantics from trying to explain these essential parts of what makes us human, and what makes life worth living, those bonds which give our soul direction and are capable of both enriching us and testing us. To answer this eternal question is to grab a hold of a shadow; but that does not deter us from trying.
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To the Wonder is a film by Terrence Malick, himself one of the more poetic filmmakers, and his visual artistry and sense of tone is the film more than the strict plot or characters. I can only talk about the story of To the Wonder to an extent; it is not a film which is driven by events, but by feeling and theme. The film is narrated by the key figures in the story at different intervals, and even in different languages, representing people who may be worlds apart in their souls, but are not so far removed from one another in their basic human needs for love and faith. Ben Affleck plays a quiet man called "Neil" in the credits, and he begins an affair with a beautiful woman named "Marina" (Olga Kurylenko). The names are in quotes, because if you caught their names in the course of the story, you are a more attentive viewer than I. The truth is that the names hardly matter, and the film even benefits from their absence, because we are forced to avoid simply anchoring ourselves to the comforts of easy identifiers, and pay attention to these characters and the interactions they experience between one another--the romance, the sorrow--and judge for ourselves. Their romance is forged abroad, among the ancient castles and cathedrals of France, along haunting beaches as the tide comes in...long, scenic drives through the foreign countryside, cradling one another. She comes home with Neil to the Midwest in the United States (Oklahoma), as they try to forge a life in his world, along with her ten-year old daughter, Tatiana (Tatiana Chiline). All seems halcyon amid the big sky of the plains in the "new world". But Marina knows something is missing; she is troubled, her husband left her, and she has been told that she remains "married in the eyes of God", although her apprehension in her relationship with Neil feels more deeply rooted than just being due to this technicality. Marina narrates most of the film through poetic flourishes, describing marriage--and their love--as what was once two souls that have become one. But if this is the case, the conflict which rises up within their harmonious affair is one which they both suffer. Is it as simple as that the fires of passion have cooled, and Neil and Marina discover that they do not share the desire to be forever with one another that they once thought? All of this sounds melodramatic when written down, but the message is the one which I retrieved from my experience viewing To the Wonder. The film is, like all good poetry, open to interpretation--how Neil and Marina look at each other, at the world...the subtext is the real meat of the story, and what is unsaid is often the most telling.
To the Wonder would not be a movie which I would strictly describe as a religious picture, but throughout the film there exists the presence of God, or some divine manifestation of the creator; this is manifested at its most literal in the character of Father Quintana (Javier Bardem). Quintana appears to have little direct effect on the story of To the Wonder, but as previously stated regarding the significance of tone and theme, he is, appropriately, the representative of God and his wonder. Quintana narrates about his own losses and doubts, his feelings of sorrow at his estranged (or perhaps, deceased) wife, and his loneliness is carried over into his composure, since several townsfolk observe he seems reserved and even dour. But Quintana crusades for God by visiting the homes of people in all walks of life, because all people need God. His visitations to people in the poor part of town and prison are quiet moments, where he does not deliver platitudes or make references to chapters and verses. He listens, and offers comfort by being the ear of God. Almost all of his preaching is done exclusively from the altar in church, but it is a sermon which is more speculative and introspective than a strict reading of the Holy Bible. He is thinking and wants to understand his God, but struggles for reasons we can guess at--he is heartbroken, he struggles with his faith, maybe he wants to reach his congregation on new ground. Quintana reminds me a bit of the priest, Tomas Ericsson, in Ingmar Bergman's film about the silence of God, Winter Light, save that Quintana expresses the existence of Christ in the world, but seems to lack that same grace in his own sense of inner peace. Only for a couple of brief moments do Quintana's path and the paths of Neil and Marina cross, and these moments do not serve as any kind of climactic milestone or ultimate revelation for any of the people--they are just inevitabilities, because, like those whom Quintana has met, it represents the presence of Christ. Quintana speaks of how Christ is everywhere--above him, below him, to the left, to the right; the gorgeousness of the film is a reflection of that divine presence in the beauty of the world, the wonder which Marina refers to as they visit a ruin in France. It is also in the small moments which make up our lives, those touches when we feel as though we are "in the world", a kind of sensate awareness of being. These are moments of walking through the undernourished, suburban back yards, through the otherworldly mining fields, or the soft quiet of ranch pasture, a place where Neil carries on a romance with a woman named Jane (Rachel McAdams), our fourth narrator, during a stretch of time shortly after Neil and Marina first doubt their relationship will work out. The central conflict at the root of To the Wonder is about Neil and Marina's difficulty in reconciling their love for one another and their attempts to join their hearts as one. Father Quintana describes it best during one of his sermons: "We fear to choose. Jesus insists on choice. The one thing he condemns utterly is avoiding the choice. To choose is to commit yourself. And to commit yourself is to run the risk, is to run the risk of failure, the risk of sin, the risk of betrayal. But Jesus can deal with all of those. Forgiveness he never denies us. The man who makes a mistake can repent. But the man who hesitates, who does nothing, who buries his talent in the earth, with him he can do nothing." This message is fundamentally the same as another quote from the Bible, Revelation 3:16: "Because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth." Love demands commitment and trust, and even faith; without these things as the adhesive to hold this bond together, it will crumble as dust.
Recommended for: Fans of an abstract tale of romance, one which you need to feel first, understand second. This is not meant to scare you away, as it is quite beautiful and relatable for anyone who has felt so in love that they thought they might spend their lives with someone, yet discovered that when the love faded, there was only the mystery of it left behind. The same kind of feeling would apply for those who have struggled with their faith. As a bit of trivia, this film was the last movie to be reviewed by Roger Ebert--a writer I greatly admire.
To the Wonder would not be a movie which I would strictly describe as a religious picture, but throughout the film there exists the presence of God, or some divine manifestation of the creator; this is manifested at its most literal in the character of Father Quintana (Javier Bardem). Quintana appears to have little direct effect on the story of To the Wonder, but as previously stated regarding the significance of tone and theme, he is, appropriately, the representative of God and his wonder. Quintana narrates about his own losses and doubts, his feelings of sorrow at his estranged (or perhaps, deceased) wife, and his loneliness is carried over into his composure, since several townsfolk observe he seems reserved and even dour. But Quintana crusades for God by visiting the homes of people in all walks of life, because all people need God. His visitations to people in the poor part of town and prison are quiet moments, where he does not deliver platitudes or make references to chapters and verses. He listens, and offers comfort by being the ear of God. Almost all of his preaching is done exclusively from the altar in church, but it is a sermon which is more speculative and introspective than a strict reading of the Holy Bible. He is thinking and wants to understand his God, but struggles for reasons we can guess at--he is heartbroken, he struggles with his faith, maybe he wants to reach his congregation on new ground. Quintana reminds me a bit of the priest, Tomas Ericsson, in Ingmar Bergman's film about the silence of God, Winter Light, save that Quintana expresses the existence of Christ in the world, but seems to lack that same grace in his own sense of inner peace. Only for a couple of brief moments do Quintana's path and the paths of Neil and Marina cross, and these moments do not serve as any kind of climactic milestone or ultimate revelation for any of the people--they are just inevitabilities, because, like those whom Quintana has met, it represents the presence of Christ. Quintana speaks of how Christ is everywhere--above him, below him, to the left, to the right; the gorgeousness of the film is a reflection of that divine presence in the beauty of the world, the wonder which Marina refers to as they visit a ruin in France. It is also in the small moments which make up our lives, those touches when we feel as though we are "in the world", a kind of sensate awareness of being. These are moments of walking through the undernourished, suburban back yards, through the otherworldly mining fields, or the soft quiet of ranch pasture, a place where Neil carries on a romance with a woman named Jane (Rachel McAdams), our fourth narrator, during a stretch of time shortly after Neil and Marina first doubt their relationship will work out. The central conflict at the root of To the Wonder is about Neil and Marina's difficulty in reconciling their love for one another and their attempts to join their hearts as one. Father Quintana describes it best during one of his sermons: "We fear to choose. Jesus insists on choice. The one thing he condemns utterly is avoiding the choice. To choose is to commit yourself. And to commit yourself is to run the risk, is to run the risk of failure, the risk of sin, the risk of betrayal. But Jesus can deal with all of those. Forgiveness he never denies us. The man who makes a mistake can repent. But the man who hesitates, who does nothing, who buries his talent in the earth, with him he can do nothing." This message is fundamentally the same as another quote from the Bible, Revelation 3:16: "Because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth." Love demands commitment and trust, and even faith; without these things as the adhesive to hold this bond together, it will crumble as dust.
Recommended for: Fans of an abstract tale of romance, one which you need to feel first, understand second. This is not meant to scare you away, as it is quite beautiful and relatable for anyone who has felt so in love that they thought they might spend their lives with someone, yet discovered that when the love faded, there was only the mystery of it left behind. The same kind of feeling would apply for those who have struggled with their faith. As a bit of trivia, this film was the last movie to be reviewed by Roger Ebert--a writer I greatly admire.