Shared Secret

Rating: 9/10 (11 April 2013)

I didn't catch this at the cinemas, but I remember very well when it came out. I was 11 at the time, and would eventually see it the next year on video. That year I'll always recall with fondness, since then I also saw Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut" (1999) at the cinema and also found Von Sternberg's "Der Blaue Engel" (1930) at the local library. These three films, all seen in a relatively short period of time, launched me to the orbit, and I've never come down. Surely I had seen great films before them, but I credit these three for setting me to take on film as a hobby.
I've seen the film again twice on the breathtaking Criterion Blu-ray during February, before that seeing it perhaps five or six years ago. So in some ways I've been reliving much of the amazement. Relishing, really. I'll do the unthinkable and quote myself, since when I wrote about Kubrick's film I came upon an idea that's valid here, too: "I never really thought about the connection between "Eyes Wide Shut" and Malick's film until now, but really, they both move in the realm of dreams and memories and projected, subjective realities – between something that did happen (to someone) and something that might have happened. There's ellipsis, ambiguity, metaphor. Both work their magic in visual terms."
Indeed, Malick's cinema is often seen as visual poetry, and no matter what one might think of the term, Malick's films can be appreciated very much in this mode, mindset. Not only the craft, which is apparent, but the soul, too. He does require patience and willingness, but very much like Tarkovsky (sometimes ever more than!), the way he allows us into a very personal vision becomes a kind of shared secret. And this kind of romance is the best way I know to remember any film, and by "remember" I mean to love and to live, and to live again.