Terrence Malick's overlooked "Knight of Cups" is one of the best films of the century so far.
"Real life is so hard to find. Where is it? How do you get there? Get out of the big cloud of dust everyone is kicking up."
Terrence Malick has not had the most conventional journey to becoming an auteur. Raised in Illinois, but living in Texas most of his life, Malick has always held very traditional American beliefs. His upbringing through typical Southern ideals and religious beliefs has contributed greatly to his ability to stand apart from most of his contemporaries in the film industry. He used these ideals to make two films in the 1970s, Badlands and Days of Heaven, respectively. After the huge success and critical praise, Malick did something unusual. He decided to take an undisclosed hiatus from the film industry and went into seclusion. His next film, The Thin Red Line, would come a long 20 years after his last. And although Malick has returned to the big screen he has never returned to the public (he hasn't really been seen in public since the 1970s and has almost never given interviews). Malick's elusiveness makes Stanley Kubrick look like Martin Scorsese in terms of doing interviews and being seen. All of this has added to the allure of Malick's movies. How else are you supposed to learn what Malick is thinking unless you see his films? After the huge success critical success of The Thin Red Line and The Tree of Life, Malick began a loose "love" trilogy that first included the film, To The Wonder, and then Knight of Cups.
Knight of Cups beautifully begins with voice-over narration from a man that utters the words, "The Pilgrim's Progress". This is matched with the first shot of the film of Christian Bale's character walking down a hill in an almost desert-like place with the horizon on the top half of the screen. What you can immediately conclude is that this is going to be a film full of ideas. A film that is so full of ideas that Malick had to create it through unusual means (i.e. no actual written script). You can also immediately tell that this is a spiritual sequel to what I believe to be the best film of the century so far, The Tree of Life.
Throughout the film, we follow Bale's character as he goes about his career as a screenwriter and how this affects him in mainly philosophical ways. Because he is a screenwriter he is living in Los Angeles and occasionally takes a weekend trip out to Las Vegas. In my opinion, one of Malick's biggest commentaries here is about Los Angeles. And let me tell you that this is the most frightening and horrific depiction of Los Angeles I've ever seen on screen. This makes Baumbach's Marriage Story look like a paradise. Now this is where you would tell me that this film doesn't depict LA in any different way than most films. But, I believe it certainly does. In Knight of Cups, LA is full of lifeless people and lifeless environments. At one point in the movie, a character is talking to Bale's character and he says, "Do you want to come to a Ketamine party? I've prayed God would take my hands and arms away. What's your name again". This type of lifeless socialism is what makes LA so cold. The most striking scene that is touching on LA culture is a scene about halfway through the film that most people are simply going to glance over. It involves Bale's character driving down an LA road with a cacophony of lights, ads, plasters of models, and billboards. Although there is everything happening at once, there is no one out and thus feels cold and empty. This is the incredible subtlety that Malick imbues throughout the film to enhance the idea that LA is a dangerous and lonely place.
As for the philosophical staples of a Malick film, "Knight of Cups" delivers in every aspect. Bale is overtly going through a crisis throughout the entirety of the film. Whether that is a spiritual one, a philosophical one, or some other crisis is up to the viewer to dissect. In many ways, I view it as both. Bale obviously doesn't want to live this life. He can't socialize, he can't get work done, and he is a blatant womanizer (there is a great moment of imagery when Malick shoots dogs going after balls in the water, symbolizing Bale going after women). You can tell throughout the film though that Bale does not enjoy this life. He does not enjoy what he is doing to other people either. This leads him to question...
Does nothing matter? Does everything matter? Does God care about us? Would it be better to be homeless? Does God purposely make life confusing so we can't understand it?
These philosophical and religious questions pierced me through the heart during the film. This is what Malick is going for and I believe he hit the bullseye basically every time. Questions were swirling throughout my head that had me thinking about what I'm doing with my own life, and how God can play into that in obvious and non-obvious ways. One of my favorite lines of dialogue in the film is, "I wonder where I was during all that time. Sleepwalking?"
Malick is very intensely and artistically challenging the viewer here. That's why this isn't going to be for everyone, which is understandable. Yes, at times it gets close to being self-indulgent and self-parody, but as always Malick is able to straddle the line perfectly. It is experimental in many overt ways but never crosses into a Kubrickian or Lynchian avant-gardism that many people can latch onto. This is a film that is set in the real world and has a tactile feeling in everything we base to be the real world, yet is delving headfirst into philosophical and religious questions of the highest level. This is where people are going to become confused and have problems. I think that's why the film has a very low IMDB score. If you quickly look up reviews online, you will find overwhelmingly negative reviews. I think this is a film that is incredibly ahead of its time and people just aren't ready for it. People weren't and still aren't ready to see something like "The Tree of Life" and it has more universal ideals than this. That is what makes Malick, Malick. He knows that 50% of people are going to walk out of the theater and he knows that he will get backlash for being "up his own ass" (this is uttered during the film which is an obvious reference to his doubters) for doubling down on his artistic and auteur vision, yet he still moves on. He really doesn't care if this film is never loved, because it mattered to him and he believes that the ideals in this film are of utmost importance for the art form.
The last chapter of the film is entitled FREEDOM. A word that has hundreds of connotations and can evoke a number of different images. The last image of the film plays off of the word, as we see a car driving down another desert-like place with huge open spaces. The last word we hear uttered is "Begin". We have the space and the ability in the world to do what we want. We have the ability to break out of our ways and do something that we think matters. We have the ability to ask important questions that can impact our future. All we have to do is simply, "Begin".
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