“Brother. Keep us. Guide us. Till the end of time.”
On the special extended edition of the criterion collection, The Tree of Life is divided into 22 chapters. Malick’s intention could not have been made clearer than it is in this layout: The movie starts off with Chastain’s monologue about ‘nature and grace’, devotes by far the longest chapter to ‘creation’, explores memories of childhood through themes like ‘innocence’, ‘conflict’, and ‘independence’ until it finally arrives at the destination of…