Days of Heaven

Terrence Malick's Days of Heaven is an evocative piece of visual poetry about love and murder. The story is perspicaciously, and so effortless told through the understandings of the narrator and undisputable blessings of nature; giving the film an emotional as well as an aesthetic approach. As we journey through the flamboyant liveliness of the Texas prairie, we learn underlying themes of love, betrayal, deception, grief, and even death through an unforgiving and a contentious love triangle. Eloquent, imaginative, visionary, and superb are some of the words that significantly define this movie. Days of Heaven is one of the most beautiful films I have ever seen.

A documentary that gets personal with the owners of two southern California pet burial grounds and a few of their clients. Filmed in the late ‘70s, when one such niche cemetery was preparing to close up for good, Gates of Heaven features a series of philosophically-inclined talking heads with pontifications to spare. Mac, the empathetic soon-to-be ex-owner, waxes poetic over the beauty of an owner/pet relationship while the boss of a nearby rendering plant, all business, sneers and gloats over the uncomfortable facts of animal disposal in an urban setting. Cal, who runs the more successful memorial service (still in operation as of 2023), knows how to say what the grieving owners want to hear, but his two sons haven’t taken note and strive for different dreams. Roger Ebert listed this as one of his ten all-time favorite films, which is how it came to my attention. I can share his fascination, if not his appreciation. Although it’s slow, meandering and limited, there’s something curious and alien about this kind of document, a window into another time and place that was once so unremarkable and now seems so novel. People no longer speak like they did forty years ago, they don’t dress the same or share similar tastes in interior décor. They're more forthcoming and earnest, more willing to put their opinions about mortality, humanity and spirituality on the eternal record. This frank sense of unguarded openness leads to abrupt laughs and deep thoughts alike, although we can’t quite tell how much of the dry humor each speaker is actually in on. Ebert found much under the surface of these interviews, leading statements that he followed to a sort of personal meditation. My own attention levels weren’t quite so sharply engaged.

By 1978, we had wonderful films released such as "Star Wars", "Jaws", "The Exorcist", "Halloween", and so many masterpieces. This film, however, is a huge step backwards from what has been accomplished in cinema by the time of its release, and for that reason is incredibly overrated. While the film no doubts accomplishes a beautiful mise-en-scene, literally making every shot worthy of a painting in a museum, it is the story's uneven and misplaced narrative that ruins the experience for the viewer. This is especially true when it comes to the "voice-of-God" narrator who is rambling-on like a three-year-old about all these random facts that seldom connect with the current events on-screen. If this was a film released around the early 1900s when cinema was still in its primitive form, this would be completely understandable. Yet considering how far film has come when this film was released, it is simply a huge disappointment. This film only has the high review that it has because of the "elitists" who automatically dub every piece of art that cannot be understood easily and immediately as "the best art humanity has to offer". Yet in reality they cannot admit that while this film has its beautiful moments it lacks the key element all proper films need; a clear narrative.

Beautiful cinematography does not make a movie good and this film is a perfect example of that. It is quite boring and feels like nothing more than an exercise in showing the most beautiful images possible over and over. The film has a heart and an interesting story upon examination, but it never truly hooks you in and for that reason, I cannot praise this film. However, it is a phenomenal film that should continue to be seen as a masterpiece of cinematography. If only Malick put as much effort into making the story less dry.

I really enjoyed the first 30 minutes because it felt like an “easy watch” and unlike anything i had seen, so I was thinking that this film would live up to the stratospheric reviews. But then it had a series of disjointed, unpolished transitions, as if there were multiple 2-3 minute segments that had been accidentally deleted. The enjoyability was further weakened by an absence of any substantive character development. Also, when the story unfolded iwith 2-3 hugely important events, there was no rise in dramatic effect. Instead, the events just happened, like an ancient silent film with flat affect on the actors’ faces. It wasn’t offensively bad at all but just seemed so…old and had an amateurish feel.