They say that in the specific, you find the universal, and who better to explore that than Terrence Malick? The trailer for his highly anticipated new film, The Tree of Life, has all those specific, tactile pleasures you’ve come to associate with Malick — the feeling of water on your palm, or the way light warps through windows and ends up a smattering on the room’s wall — but it literally includes the universe, too: This intimate tale of Brad Pitt’s oppressive dad and the son still cowed by him (eventually played by Sean Penn) is intriguingly intercut with gorgeous shots of planets revolving and interstellar light shows. (No dinosaurs, yet — you’ve gotta save something for the real thing!) It’s a big, bold artistic statement, but when it comes to filmed meditations on human interconnection, we’d take this any day over a facile, feel-good documentary. Is it May yet?
