Terrence Malick’s new film, The Tree of Life, was apparently booed (and applauded) at Cannes, putting it in a (probably) small group of films that includes Lars von Trier’s Antichrist, Vincent Gallo’s execrable Brown Bunny, and Michelangelo Antonioni’s astoundingly beautiful L’Avventura. Manohla Dargis describes Tree as a “a beautiful if hermetic vision,” though, which — despite the many, many times I’ve disagreed with Dargis — I find encouraging.

While I can’t defend a film I haven’t seen, but I’ll point out two facts: a lot of people at Cannes get drunk (you have drink beer in French theaters, after all), and even French people can have crappy taste. Malick hasn’t made a film yet that I’ve found uninteresting. I’ve seen all of his features, and I especially love The Thin Red Line and The New World. Are his films also glacially slow and occasionally self-indulgent? Sure. But always beautiful, and always fascinating.

The Tree of Life is out in the US on May 27, 2011. You can read the film’s official synopsis after the cut.
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