When the film The Tree of Life began, I originally assumed it was going to be about a family in the mid 1950's coping with the death of their son and learning to overcome the tragedy. I was expecting to watch a long, painful journey with the mother and father that eventually would end with the two of them overcoming the hardship and falling deeper in love. A good, cliche ending to a film. But boy, was I mistaken. This film takes on the big questions of life and forces the viewers to feel, like actually feel. I experienced more emotions than I can list while watching this film. I went from simply watching the film to emotionally investing myself into the lives of the characters and feeling what I imagined they must have been feeling at the time. The Tree of Life requires its audience to feel and ask questions.
Personally, I believe that the overall theme of this film is the choice between Nature and Grace. There are two different paths to take in life, living by nature or living by grace. Taking the path of Nature will show you the cruel, survival of the fittest view of the world. Adversely, the path of grace is forgiving, loving, and very sympathetic. The father in this film follows the path of nature. He wants to instill the competitive, hard working mindset onto his sons so badly that he is shown as emotionally abusive. The mother follows the path of grace and in return her husband views her as weak and admits that he blames her for turning his sons against him. The mother continuously loves her boys and her husband, even when they are far from lovable in return, because grace has taught her forgiveness and unconditional love.
Whichever path you choose, between grace or nature, it will dictate your decisions and completely shape the way you see the world. I like to think we have a choice of the path we take through life, but the way we were raised is going to have a large impact on the path we choose to take. The oldest son grew up with an emotionally abusive father, following the path of nature, and an extremely caring mother whom he loved very much, following the path of grace. One would think it would be an easy choice for this boy to see the more favorable path to follow in life, but because of the large impact his father had on him while growing up the boy finds himself falling into the path of nature. There was a scene in the film that shows the father and son in the backyard and the son admits to his father "I'm more like you than I am her." This does not seem to be something the boy is proud of, but it is something that he is aware of.
After watching this film, did you think about the path that you chose? If you did, are you confident in that path or would you considering switching?
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