After seeing the trailer some time last year I had been looking forward to watching "The Tree of Life". When it won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes film festival I was even more eager to see it. Now that I have I am puzzled why it has been lauded with so much praise. It is by far one of the most boring and bombastic movies I have seen in recent years. At some point I got really annoyed by the whispering voice over. The thing is some of the images (and of course the accompanying music) are quite beautiful and there is a good movie in there somewhere. Perhaps if someone were to do a remix.

The reason that I'm so disappointed is that I recognized myself in the character played by Sean Penn. What's more, many of the locations in the film I have either visited or would love to visit. So, there is something of "me" in the film.

I still like the trailer though, but that is in part because I like the music, excerpts from Smetana's The Moldau and Patrick Cassidy's Funeral March.