The ending as wish-fulfilment in The Tree of Life, A.I. Artificial Intelligence and Lost
(This piece was originally published at Bigother.com, August 1st, 2012)
It’s tempting to see the world of The Tree of Life as one where nobody shits. [1] Granted, for all the beautiful moments, there are ugly ones — the young brothers in the film see a crippled man, thirsty prisoners, the drowning of a child [2] — but these feel like examples, like the Buddha’s Four Sights (what politicians would call ‘teachable moments’.)
But teaching us what? By the time we’ve got to the ending, where the characters are reunited in the afterlife on a beach, the film has answered a family’s grief over their dead brother and son, RL, by pointing to The Creation on the one hand, and the promised End on the other — a cosmic Putting Things In Perspective.
The afterlife with your family; voice-overs that say “Love everyone!”; shots of angelic figures and natural beauty: the threat of kitsch never leaves this film. Maybe there’s a wonky sort of radicalism to be admired in making these days an earnest piece of religious art. And not everything that’s earnest is kitsch [3].
But an earnest answer to suffering, a final scene that gives you a triumphant vision of paradise?… In an early scene RL’s grandmother tries to…
