Review of Days of Heaven (1978) by Alex A — 08 Sep 2013

Terrence Malick means well, but his flaw as a director is that he prefers visuals and art direction over plot and story structure. I'll admit that Day's of Heaven is and impressive film both technically and visually, but its light on story and the characters lack enough depth, development or personality to make them anything more than one dimensional, which makes the story very uninvolving.

Malick's narrative structure also feels extremely rushed because he often has the film jump too quickly from one scene to the next which never really lets us see the complexity of the character's relationships and how they each evolve as time goes on.

Overall I did somewhat enjoy the movie, but Malick's restrictions turned what could have been a great movie into a somewhat good one.