Review of Days of Heaven (1978) by Zak L — 01 Aug 2011

Terrence Malick's "Days of Heaven" is one of the most beautiful films I have ever seen. The cinematography is unmatched, showing us beautiful landscapes and close-ups of nature in a way that you've never seen them before. And yet despite the beauty of his images and his focus on nature, this may very well be Malick's most human story.

Bill (Richard Gere) is a Chicago steelworker who must run away to Texas after accidentally killing his boss in a violent outburst. He takes along his girlfriend Abby (Brooke Adams) and his sister Linda (Linda Manz). They go to work for a rich, though fatally ill, farmer (Sam Shepard), who soon falls in love with Abby. Bill encourages Abby to marry him in order to inherit the sick farmer's estate, but not everything goes as planned when Abby falls in love with the farmer and he fails to get any sicker.

The beauty of this film is that not very much happens in the first hour. Malick's camera lingers over his characters and setting, capturing small moments in their everyday lives without giving us much in the way of plot. However, we never get bored, as the images, along with Linda Manz's narration, captivate us and fully immerse us into the film's world. By letting the characters live and breathe, without too much of a plot that they must attend to, Malick makes us feel as if we've spent far more time with these people than we actually have (the film runs at a brisk 97 minutes). This makes it all the more affecting when tragedy does finally strike, and we find ourselves swept off our feet by the sudden turmoil that our characters find themselves in. Yes, it has been building up throughout the whole film, but we hardly notice due to Malick's ability to let us join these characters in their everyday lives, not much thinking about what happens to them, but more about who they are as people.

There isn't much I can say about the actual imagery within the film. No matter how many times I say that the film is breathtaking, gorgeous, and beautiful, you still must see it for yourself in order to fully appreciate the talents of writer-director Terrence Malick and cinematographers NÃ (C)stor Almendros and Haskell Wexler. The image that I found most striking was the continual showing of the farmer's home out on the prairie. The image, shown throughout the film, is stunning in its beauty, but quite sad in its implications. Seeing the house sitting there on the prairie, lonely, with little company other than the grass and wheat, really makes us sympathize with the farmer and get an idea of the kind of isolation he must be feeling.

There really isn't enough praise in the world for what Malick has accomplished here, blending image and story so perfectly and so beautifully. This is a must-see for film lovers, and a must-own for Malick fans.