Monthly Archives: January, 2012

The title of the film is taken from a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins called “Spring and Fall,” wherein the poem’s narrator addresses a young girl named Margaret. The narrator instructs the young woman, “Ah as the heart grows older/It will come to sights much colder….It is the blight man was born for,/It is Margaret you mourn for.” And so it is Lisa who begins to learn that she’s not grieving for the dead woman or even fighting for justice. Instead, she’s mourning for her own loss of ideals, her own dissipation of youth and ignorance. A complicated, thoroughly impressive film with some excellent dialogue, it’s also a nostalgic time capsule of both New York and its actors from a few years ago, filmed in 2005. Since then, all our hearts have grown older.

What is there to say about this masterpiece that hasn't already been said? Somehow tackling cosmic creation and the fruition of a Texas bound family during the 50s, Terrance Malick and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki have crafted one of the most eye poppingly gorgeous films to ever hit celluloid. And it's not just the visual beauty that makes this behemoth a thing of cinematic magic.