The Sea of Trees is a movie by Gus Van Sant, starring Matthew McConaughey. I feel like the same person I was before it, only now I don't feel an obligation to watch this movie anymore. I experienced a couple of strong emotions, but those have been coming in all films lately, even the trash. This naturally follows from my constant, determined residence in the reality immediately around me, and my rejection of fictions. As for the movie itself, there is a gorgeous concept standing as its basic premise -- a Japanese forest for suicides -- and there is a narrative arc. If it makes any sense for me to critique this movie, from some blend of an artistic and human perspective, I would say that the direction for this premise needs to be darker and heavier, and that the ending needs to be entirely truncated, stomped on, and rewritten. But really this movie is the work of hundreds of people, all of whom are ill-defined collections of matter and memory, and is not a story but is just a thing, some thing, with blank, faceless components. I sat, a bundle of atoms before a bundle of atoms, and felt two emotions and walked away. I understand that that face belongs to some thing called Matthew McConaughey, who somehow persists through time, and is thought to have not perished yet. But he was nothing but a mirage before me, and I observed this mirage and was slightly affected and then carried myself elsewhere.
Perhaps this movie needs Terrence Malick or Inarritu. The premise demands a spare and contemplative style; Van Sant and the writer appear to be too mainstream to really work this out. The lead actor does a great job.
1.5/4 for films, but a perfect and necessary score for being an object situated in the plane of necessary things.
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