esrosedotblog

EPIC

Today's movie is so beautiful that it brings tears to the eyes. I saw it when it came out and it was still fresh in my mind. Knowing the tragic outcome is less important than the setting and the beauty of the Texas plains where it is filmed.

Terrence Malick's Days of Heaven (1973) won an Oscar for cinematography. That is the half of it. The editing and the interweaving of the plot is wondrous. The dialogue is spare. Almost inconsequential except for the narration. It is almost like a silent film.

The narration is a tale told by a teenage girl for whom the term 'hard knock life' is an understatement. We see, through her eyes, a great break in the difficult life that she has lived. For a time, she is in days of heaven.

The young girl is Linda Lanz who only made a few films. Her brother, the almost painfully young Richard Gere is at odds with Sam Shepard over their love of Brooke Adams. A triangle.

We saw Mallick's The Badlands earlier; Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek on a crime spree. We will see The Thin Red Line. He hasn't done a lot of work but what he has done is great.

This is a NYTImes Best1176 Film and I will give it a five out of Netflixfive.