Robert Koehler, Jonathan Rosenbaum, J. Hoberman, and others' reservations? Yes. At the same time, I can't deny that this film surprised me in ways few films have, that it continues to do so on third and fourth viewings, and continues to grow in my mind. I liken Malick's films to music and poetry, two mediums where the overpowering emotive sensation produced -- listening to a Zbigniew Preisner requiem or reading a T.S. Eliot verse, for instance -- is often beyond the grasp of my understanding. I do appreciate attempts to demystify these sensations -- Alex Ross's writings on classical music are an example -- and yet a part of me feels these efforts are wholly inadequate. Perhaps it's a religious impulse not to ask "why?" but instead to simply believe, to follow. The combination of Preisner's "Lacrimosa -- Days of Tears" and images of celestial vapours at the beginning of the world in The Tree of Life left me speechless in the same way as when I first discovered the space age montage in 2001: A Space Odyssey set to Strauss's "The Blue Danube." But where Kubrick was all about employing classical music to grandiose effect, Malick manages to use his selections (Tavener, Couperin) more discreetly in many scenes, giving the film a distinctive weight and balance. An example of this is the sequence when Brad Pitt's Mr. O'Brien is away on business and a sense of liberation surges through the lives of the other family members, aided in part