Knight Of Cups (2015) **1/2
After the letdown that was To The Wonder (2012) (still a good film, but a far cry from all of Terrence Malick's previous work) and with neither the trailer for Knight Of Cups (2015) or Song To Song (2017) (which I have yet to see) appealing much to me, I've unfortunately been lukewarm on Malick for some time now. And to be clear I love his first five films.
In Knight Of Cups—as is to be expected—Emmanuel Lubeski's cinematography is simply stunning. I do appreciate what Malick does—he loves to capture the moments between the scenes we traditionally see in narrative films. But what once felt naturalistic, poetic and engaging in his work now feels staged, meandering and a bit of a chore to sit through. Watching Christian Bale drift through random scenes with mouth agape, little to no reaction to what happens around him and basically no dialogue while impossibly beautiful but often vapid and naked women dance and shower him with attention, and dozens of big name actors show up for no reason for mere seconds just feels like a waste of time. Seeing a bunch of rich people that never seem to have any cares or true hardships, just endless freedom to ponder, float through life and flirt with each other in expensive clothes—all while reading Malick's stream of conscious narrative (something I once loved but now find old hat)—isn't that interesting to me.
There is no denying that Malick's films are beautiful audiovisual journeys. There is no denying that there is no other filmmaker like him. But somehow he seems to have fallen into a formula I don't care as much for as I once did. It's likely that I just don't connect with the characters or stories in TTW and KOC. But it's almost as if Malick is attempting to make films like Baraka (1992) and Samsara (2011) (my review here) while still trying to weave some sort of (very) loose narrative thread and I'm just kind of over that schtick.
You can find my Terrence Malick Feature Films Ranked list here.
In Knight Of Cups—as is to be expected—Emmanuel Lubeski's cinematography is simply stunning. I do appreciate what Malick does—he loves to capture the moments between the scenes we traditionally see in narrative films. But what once felt naturalistic, poetic and engaging in his work now feels staged, meandering and a bit of a chore to sit through. Watching Christian Bale drift through random scenes with mouth agape, little to no reaction to what happens around him and basically no dialogue while impossibly beautiful but often vapid and naked women dance and shower him with attention, and dozens of big name actors show up for no reason for mere seconds just feels like a waste of time. Seeing a bunch of rich people that never seem to have any cares or true hardships, just endless freedom to ponder, float through life and flirt with each other in expensive clothes—all while reading Malick's stream of conscious narrative (something I once loved but now find old hat)—isn't that interesting to me.
There is no denying that Malick's films are beautiful audiovisual journeys. There is no denying that there is no other filmmaker like him. But somehow he seems to have fallen into a formula I don't care as much for as I once did. It's likely that I just don't connect with the characters or stories in TTW and KOC. But it's almost as if Malick is attempting to make films like Baraka (1992) and Samsara (2011) (my review here) while still trying to weave some sort of (very) loose narrative thread and I'm just kind of over that schtick.
You can find my Terrence Malick Feature Films Ranked list here.
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