Knight of CupsA pilgrim is one who wanders or one who seeks something intrinsic to the soul. Every pilgrim journeys, but not every pilgrim knows what they seek. Rick (Christian Bale) is a pilgrim in the sense that he has abandoned his past, his family, and sought out a new life in the glitz and glossy veneer of Los Angeles as a screenwriter. But Rick does not know peace; he seeks what he understands as love, as acceptance, as a deeper understanding of himself. His odyssey is punctuated by romances with various women, but for all his questing, he cannot behold the bars of the spiritual prison forged by his own design.
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Knight of Cups is described as an "experimental" drama, an art house film which avoids linear plot and structured narrative in favor of a contemplative expression of self-actualization, of malaise and ennui, yes, but also of the unanswered questions of the soul, the kind that keep one up at night, and lead one to the window under a cloudless night to stare up at the full moon beaming down over the treeline. The presentation is abstract, but is visually driven, as befits cinema, affording the audience the agency to connect the dots, challenging the audience to become more than simply a passive passenger, but a participant, recalling other films like Last Year at Marienbad or writer/director Terrence Malick's own To the Wonder. Knight of Cups is about a journey, and is represented in this capacity through a variety of metaphors. There are numerous shots of Rick driving, following the road from destination to destination, where roads often seem similar, and sometimes the change in scenery seems only superficial. And as befits the setting, Los Angeles is often described as a sprawling city of roads and highways, so Rick is in an appropriate locale for this kind of pavement-centric brand of soul-searching. There is often the presence of water, from swimming pools to the Pacific Ocean, and Rick and company often submerge themselves in these pools, adding another dream-like dimension to his unreal Hollywood life. "Unreal" is an accurate way to describe the world into which Rick has thrust himself. Los Angeles (especially Hollywood) has a reputation for artificiality and as a "dream factory"; even the portion of the Los Angeles River in the film is paved over in defiance of nature. So Rick's egress from his presumably staid lifestyle "back home" appears to be less genuine as a means of finding himself so much as it is about losing himself. Rick often seems to be a passive observer in his own life, only occasionally given to his indulgence to party, masking his troubles and sequestering them by pursuing affair after affair. His crisis presumably stems from a twofold conflict, one involving his rage-filled brother, Barry (Wes Bentley) and their ailing father, Joseph (Brian Dennehy), as well as the family he has left behind, represented by his estranged wife, Nancy (Cate Blanchett), whom Rick recalls and yet from whom remains disenfranchised. Rick is a pilgrim, seeking something, but is just as much a fugitive, fleeing himself by adopting an alternate persona to accommodate his new fabricated realm.
The title, Knight of Cups, refers to a tarot card of the "Minor Arcana", a card which--when regarded for divination--can mean both romance and new beginnings, but also falsity and errors in understanding the truth, an appropriate choice given Rick's dilemma. In one scene, Rick visits a diviner to have his fortune read, one of no doubt countless efforts on his part to pursue the quest to "understand himself", regardless of if this is his actual desire. Throughout Knight of Cups, there are title interjections, often referring to other cards in the "Major Arcana" of the tarot card deck; not so much chapter breaks, these titles are more like punctuation in the film. The cards in the Major Arcana are sometimes described as representative of a person's journey through life, with each card representing a change in that person; in Knight of Cups, they also refer to a key person who both embodies that card's message of transition and accompanies Rick's change in personality. For instance, the "Death" card actually has more in common with a kind of significant self-awareness and acceptance of change, rather than physical death, and is manifested in Rick's affair with his married friend, Elizabeth (Natalie Portman), and his claims to wish to marry her instead. But when Rick discovers that she is pregnant following their romance--and Elizabeth isn't sure if it's his--they appear emotionally distant. In keeping with the abstract narrative, it could be interpreted that Rick discovers that he was not genuine in his wish to marry Elizabeth when confronted with being a father. That said, just like divination with tarot cards, and the kind of art Elizabeth and Rick experience at the art gallery, the artistry of Malick's picture is that it is open to interpretation. Through Knight of Cups, lines from John Bunyan's "The Pilgrim's Progress" and "The Hymn of the Pearl" from the apocryphal Acts of Thomas, are both interwoven throughout the narrative like threads of gold stitched into its tapestry. Both choices utilized in Knight of Cups pluck beautiful passages to add to the richness of the film, but are also somewhat paradoxical. Both tales talk of a journey, but whereas "The Pilgrim's Progress" deals with a man seeking to overcome his past sins as he comes to understand them by his knowledge, "The Hymn of the Pearl" is akin to the reverse, where a prince is seduced into a deep slumber, and loses his memory of the quest bestowed upon him by his father. And yet this too cannot help but resemble the duplicitous nature of tarot card divination, where a card may mean virtually the opposite when "reversed". These subtle--but crucial--touches are the true canvas of Knight of Cups, where this additional insight can afford a whole new interpretation of the film, and establishes the film as an artistic expression and meditation on the human condition, a deep and engrossing thought-piece all too rare in film.
Recommended for: Fans of a film as rewarding as it is thought-provoking and challenging. It is a film which behooves the audience to allow themselves to be swept away by its majesty and soul-stirring imagery and tone. It is a celluloid poem, and designed for audiences who are willing to honestly approach the idea of film as art.
The title, Knight of Cups, refers to a tarot card of the "Minor Arcana", a card which--when regarded for divination--can mean both romance and new beginnings, but also falsity and errors in understanding the truth, an appropriate choice given Rick's dilemma. In one scene, Rick visits a diviner to have his fortune read, one of no doubt countless efforts on his part to pursue the quest to "understand himself", regardless of if this is his actual desire. Throughout Knight of Cups, there are title interjections, often referring to other cards in the "Major Arcana" of the tarot card deck; not so much chapter breaks, these titles are more like punctuation in the film. The cards in the Major Arcana are sometimes described as representative of a person's journey through life, with each card representing a change in that person; in Knight of Cups, they also refer to a key person who both embodies that card's message of transition and accompanies Rick's change in personality. For instance, the "Death" card actually has more in common with a kind of significant self-awareness and acceptance of change, rather than physical death, and is manifested in Rick's affair with his married friend, Elizabeth (Natalie Portman), and his claims to wish to marry her instead. But when Rick discovers that she is pregnant following their romance--and Elizabeth isn't sure if it's his--they appear emotionally distant. In keeping with the abstract narrative, it could be interpreted that Rick discovers that he was not genuine in his wish to marry Elizabeth when confronted with being a father. That said, just like divination with tarot cards, and the kind of art Elizabeth and Rick experience at the art gallery, the artistry of Malick's picture is that it is open to interpretation. Through Knight of Cups, lines from John Bunyan's "The Pilgrim's Progress" and "The Hymn of the Pearl" from the apocryphal Acts of Thomas, are both interwoven throughout the narrative like threads of gold stitched into its tapestry. Both choices utilized in Knight of Cups pluck beautiful passages to add to the richness of the film, but are also somewhat paradoxical. Both tales talk of a journey, but whereas "The Pilgrim's Progress" deals with a man seeking to overcome his past sins as he comes to understand them by his knowledge, "The Hymn of the Pearl" is akin to the reverse, where a prince is seduced into a deep slumber, and loses his memory of the quest bestowed upon him by his father. And yet this too cannot help but resemble the duplicitous nature of tarot card divination, where a card may mean virtually the opposite when "reversed". These subtle--but crucial--touches are the true canvas of Knight of Cups, where this additional insight can afford a whole new interpretation of the film, and establishes the film as an artistic expression and meditation on the human condition, a deep and engrossing thought-piece all too rare in film.
Recommended for: Fans of a film as rewarding as it is thought-provoking and challenging. It is a film which behooves the audience to allow themselves to be swept away by its majesty and soul-stirring imagery and tone. It is a celluloid poem, and designed for audiences who are willing to honestly approach the idea of film as art.