You Won't Fall

I notice too many critics (mis)reading the end of _Tree of Life_ as an image of the afterlife. E.g., Andrew O’Hehir laments “To my taste the visual and auditory experience of The Tree of Life is frequently spectacular, but also nearly drowns the film’s Texas family story in a rising tide of mystical mumbo-jumbo, culminating in a vision of the afterlife that seems sentimental and alarmingly literal-minded” (Slate).  However, it is only O’Hehir’s own simplistic reading that falls prey to banal literal-mindedness.

Instead, I saw this final sequence in _Tree of Life_ as a glimpse into Jack’s consciousness - or, more precisely, his imagination - as, after a lifetime of grief, he comes into a sense of peace, through  a reckoning with his brother’s death, how he & his parents have coped with it, and how these events have shaped him. It is not death represented at the film’s end, but rather a moment of ek-static Being born out of grace, empathy, love.