By Onyx Staff | 01/11/2020

In anticipation of the new Terrence Malick film, A Hidden Life, I must revisit my feelings regarding this particular filmmaker and endeavor to pin down exactly why I find his body of work so satisfying and so enjoyable. One reason I feel this need is because his work seems so divisive in film critic circles, apparently you either like Terrance Malick movies, or you don’t. I happen to fall into the “I love Terrance Malick and I think he is a poet genius” camp.

Beginning with Badlands, Days of Heaven and moving into The Thin Red Line, The Tree of Life and Song to Song just to name a few of his ten features that he has directed, I can’t help but feel a kindred spirit. In every one of his movies the world is at first depicted as achingly beautiful. Every shot is crafted to make you awestruck at the beauty and the poetry that surrounds us on this planet, no matter the machinations of man and the hardships that we choose to occupy our time and energy with, to Malick, life is a miracle and we are surrounded by the wonder of that.  With every Terrence Malick movie comes a faith, a faith that the universe is ultimately “good” and life is a “good thing” even as we struggle.

-Rick, Onyx Staff Member