Knight of Cups presented the same family of meditation as The Tree of Life but with, in my feeling, less beauty attached. We have a relatively beautiful Christian Bale wandering alone through life, which satisfies me. But the setting is empty, empty Los Angeles. Pale, painful void. Instead of being presented with the whole of existence, microcosms to cosmos, birth to destruction, as in the aforementioned film, we are drowned in the absent suffering of high-life Los Angeles, a man who is walking, literally, through empty streets and empty homes. Maybe it's the dire chromatics of my streaming presentation -- a Malick film should not be viewed like this. But every time I started connecting with a feature of the story or montage of images it was whisked away for the dreary beginnings of a new subject, and nothing was developed.
I understand the intention to present meditation around a theme, leaving the viewer to work with the pieces, rather than delivering a solid object. But it wasn't a very enjoyable experience. Knight of Cups wasn't much of an experience for me.
However, I am entirely unwilling to say that I was bored during this film. I can sit and watch a Terrence Malick film without issue. And I can imagine another person who connects strongly with the material here and finds the experience revelatory. Maybe another time in my life I would. The objective qualities of this film involve its unique highly-characterized visual subjects and its voice-over reflections. This film as an experience must depend significantly on the subjectivity. More than most films it presents life, unstructured, and so just as we experience life uniquely we will experience this film uniquely.
Do I want to wander around doing childish things at dusk in a suit? Do I want the crossbred professional/rugged facial hair and hairdo, indicating my isolation? Do I want someone with me who is willing to fall into oceans of sensory experience, a pummeling by the waves of true life? Do I want to be beat and broken down by merciless life like this, ground to "mere quartz grit" in that stony light?
I don't have any trouble calling this a good film. I had some memorable moments, and the craft itself is all there. I do respect it. Nothing here seemed very beautiful -- it didn't feel beautiful to watch. And that characteristic is necessary to make a film like this worthy of celebration.
