Review of Days of Heaven (1978) by Tim H — 05 Jan 2008

AHHHHH! (That's the sound of me screaming because my face is melting away from how awesome this movie was.).

I'm pretty sure I haven't seen Malick films. Holy sh*t. What a movie to start on. Days of Heaven isn't so much a film as it is a visual experience. Malick takes you to the factory, then exposes you uncooked to the nature of the Texas panhandle. I don't know how he shot this movie in the way that he did. He probably was only allowed to shoot fifteen minutes a day for a lot of stuff because the world was always just perfectly gorgeous when he shot it. The colors in Days of Heaven are unlike anything I have ever seen. You can tell that the man didn't settle for any shots. Unless the world was like he wanted to show it, he wasn't going to devote any stock to that moment. Look at the cover of the Criterion box and realize that's one of the lesser shots in the movie.

There's very little to complain about in this movie. I'm not normally a big fan of Richard Gere, but in his younger days, before he became RICHARD GERE, he was a pretty solid theatre actor. Attach Brooke Adams and Sam Shepard (who I love) to this movie and you get a really wellrounded cast. But even though I mention these three actors specifically, I have to commend the younger sister part. The narrator of the film. She was absolutely perfect and made me regret everything I've ever acted it. Her tone of speech was so natural and even that you know the girl has an insight into the human psyche that even the hardest of hardened adults lack. She could look at herself and know that she was a child who never had a childhood until these moments.

I'm amazed that this movie is only an hour-and-a-half. The events of the film are epic and honest. Again, I harken back to the visuals that Malick induces. You can smell the grain and the dust in the air. The animals are in Eden and Eden is oh-so-fragile. But I would like to close with an odd thought. I started really throwing back the Criterion Collection two years ago. Sure, I had seen my share of the popular ones (the Wes Andersons and *groan* the Michael Bays), but I really got down and dirty about two years ago. Since then, I have never seen more really dead animals. To compound that thought, I have never seen so many kids killing or cleaning dead animals than I have with the Criterion Collection. Perhaps if I ever want a Tim Hruszkewycz Director Approved Criterion release, I should just have a movie about kids killing chickens. I'm sure that's what the world needs right now.