{{ You're the Truth, Not I }} Thre Tree of Life / Placebo
It happened:
Why is it twenty years? I've always wondered when I hear this song. Put together with this movie, it can mean a few different things. In the opening few shots, we have the O'Brien family on "the beach" (*cough* heaven, it's heaven guys). Grown Jack approaches his brother, who is in the form of his child-self, and they embrace. Jack's family is all together then, both of his brothers, his father and his mother, all showing each other openly how, when all is truly said and done, they simply love each other. All masks thrown away.
Then we have grown-Jack (Sean Penn) in reality. Because all that is either prophecy or, just as likely, fantasy. Either way, it's not reality, not the here and now, in this realm of existence. There are at still -- at least -- 20 years to go. Jack is middle-aged and can expect another good 20 years before entering his old age, and thus, death, and thus, eternal unity with the universe and fulfillment, etc, etc. (Religousness/spirituality can translate into a strange longing-for-death sometimes.)
Of course, death can strike at any time. It's completely unpredictable. Like with Jack's brother who (it's really not a spoiler because the narrator tells us within the first five minutes of the film) "died when he was 19 years old." He only got about two decades of life. Just about twenty years. (And that happened, from the look of adult-Jack, probably about 20 years ago.)
And twenty years is how we measure waves of generations. A family unit stays together for about twenty years, because when their kids are all about twenty, that's when everybody breaks off and does their own thing and starts their own families or heads down other roads. So, because this movie and thus this fanvid, is mostly non-linear, the "beginning" is not just the opening few scenes, but the beginning of Jack's life, and with him, his family unit. They have twenty years of being that family, of sharing that existence and that confluence of meaning, before splitting off. And that time is full of meaning, for all of them -- certainly for Jack, who takes from it the two conflicting life approaches/interpretations/philosophies of his parents: "the way of grace, and the way of nature" (as his mother puts it, again, in a voiceover very early on in the movie).
The way of nature, embodied by his father, is essentially the will to power, nature's (or every individual thing in nature's) dissatisfaction with the status quo and it's will to challenge, to seek, to push, to conquer. The way of grace is what his mother strives for, looking at the bigger picture, with wonder and awe but also with acceptance, not seeking anything. Forgiving. Loving. Being at peace with. Jack struggles to reconcile these ideas ("Mother, Father, always you wrestle inside me, always you will."). It seems like he feels more natural affinity with his father's way, but values his mother's way more?
His mother's way, of course, is also shown through his younger brother. The same one that dies. Jack looks back on him and thinks that he was "true, kind." "What was it you showed me?" he wonders, thinking about the way his brother forgave Jack whenever he pushed him too hard and took advantage of his trust.
"You're the truth, not I" is the idea this song ultimately fixes upon and I think that's the same idea Jack seizes on. It's one expression of the way of grace. Realizing that redirecting one's focus beyond onself and to The Other is where a true sense of meaning can be found, and thus happiness and fulfillment.
The final scenes of the movie show Jack looking disconcerted as his awareness shifts back to reality after (we can assume) vividly imagining being reconciled with his family in heaven and witnessing the ascent of his mother and brother. It's an ambiguous ending. If it had just ended with heaven, we could maybe think that that's what the movie is telling us is going to happen with these characters. Returning to Jack reminds us that we're limited to his head. BUT -- after looking around, bewildered, at the nearby skyscrapers, Jack smiles. It doesn't matter if it's literally true. It's "truth" in the sense that, it's the right focus, to think of them, to see that infinite feedback loop of love between them and coming from them to him and him to them -- his love for his mother and brother (and his other brother and father, too -- they're also in the vision) and his happiness for them, for their existence (his acceptance of his brother's death), is enough. It gives him a sense of meaning in the world, of truth.
If any of that made any sense.
Um, I'm not a master of words, though I wish to be, so read a poem instead <-- that one, specifically (at least, at this moment, I suggest that one -- it seems relevant... fitting). (Although the poem's conclusion is not so outward-minded as this vid&movie&song. "I make truth" is not exactly "You're the truth." But. Uh. Nah, I give up for now.)
Click to viewWhy is it twenty years? I've always wondered when I hear this song. Put together with this movie, it can mean a few different things. In the opening few shots, we have the O'Brien family on "the beach" (*cough* heaven, it's heaven guys). Grown Jack approaches his brother, who is in the form of his child-self, and they embrace. Jack's family is all together then, both of his brothers, his father and his mother, all showing each other openly how, when all is truly said and done, they simply love each other. All masks thrown away.
Then we have grown-Jack (Sean Penn) in reality. Because all that is either prophecy or, just as likely, fantasy. Either way, it's not reality, not the here and now, in this realm of existence. There are at still -- at least -- 20 years to go. Jack is middle-aged and can expect another good 20 years before entering his old age, and thus, death, and thus, eternal unity with the universe and fulfillment, etc, etc. (Religousness/spirituality can translate into a strange longing-for-death sometimes.)
Of course, death can strike at any time. It's completely unpredictable. Like with Jack's brother who (it's really not a spoiler because the narrator tells us within the first five minutes of the film) "died when he was 19 years old." He only got about two decades of life. Just about twenty years. (And that happened, from the look of adult-Jack, probably about 20 years ago.)
And twenty years is how we measure waves of generations. A family unit stays together for about twenty years, because when their kids are all about twenty, that's when everybody breaks off and does their own thing and starts their own families or heads down other roads. So, because this movie and thus this fanvid, is mostly non-linear, the "beginning" is not just the opening few scenes, but the beginning of Jack's life, and with him, his family unit. They have twenty years of being that family, of sharing that existence and that confluence of meaning, before splitting off. And that time is full of meaning, for all of them -- certainly for Jack, who takes from it the two conflicting life approaches/interpretations/philosophies of his parents: "the way of grace, and the way of nature" (as his mother puts it, again, in a voiceover very early on in the movie).
The way of nature, embodied by his father, is essentially the will to power, nature's (or every individual thing in nature's) dissatisfaction with the status quo and it's will to challenge, to seek, to push, to conquer. The way of grace is what his mother strives for, looking at the bigger picture, with wonder and awe but also with acceptance, not seeking anything. Forgiving. Loving. Being at peace with. Jack struggles to reconcile these ideas ("Mother, Father, always you wrestle inside me, always you will."). It seems like he feels more natural affinity with his father's way, but values his mother's way more?
His mother's way, of course, is also shown through his younger brother. The same one that dies. Jack looks back on him and thinks that he was "true, kind." "What was it you showed me?" he wonders, thinking about the way his brother forgave Jack whenever he pushed him too hard and took advantage of his trust.
"You're the truth, not I" is the idea this song ultimately fixes upon and I think that's the same idea Jack seizes on. It's one expression of the way of grace. Realizing that redirecting one's focus beyond onself and to The Other is where a true sense of meaning can be found, and thus happiness and fulfillment.
The final scenes of the movie show Jack looking disconcerted as his awareness shifts back to reality after (we can assume) vividly imagining being reconciled with his family in heaven and witnessing the ascent of his mother and brother. It's an ambiguous ending. If it had just ended with heaven, we could maybe think that that's what the movie is telling us is going to happen with these characters. Returning to Jack reminds us that we're limited to his head. BUT -- after looking around, bewildered, at the nearby skyscrapers, Jack smiles. It doesn't matter if it's literally true. It's "truth" in the sense that, it's the right focus, to think of them, to see that infinite feedback loop of love between them and coming from them to him and him to them -- his love for his mother and brother (and his other brother and father, too -- they're also in the vision) and his happiness for them, for their existence (his acceptance of his brother's death), is enough. It gives him a sense of meaning in the world, of truth.
If any of that made any sense.
Um, I'm not a master of words, though I wish to be, so read a poem instead <-- that one, specifically (at least, at this moment, I suggest that one -- it seems relevant... fitting). (Although the poem's conclusion is not so outward-minded as this vid&movie&song. "I make truth" is not exactly "You're the truth." But. Uh. Nah, I give up for now.)