The tree of life

According to the avant-garde British director Peter Greenaway, the film's original ambition was to be a great visual art, but as the narrative element has grown to dominate the medium, even the most creative cine matography has been subordinated to the story. [...] Malick is one of a surprising number of contemporary filmmakers who began in philosophy. Be that as it may, Malick has given his film an epigraph, a quote from the Book of Job, that suggests something different: "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the Earth . . . when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for Joy!" The traditional understanding of those lines suggests the humbling of Job, a good man put to a test of faith by a compassionless God.