Terrence Malick’s The Tree Of Life which was five years in the making has won the Palme D’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Personally, I’m thrilled. I am a huge Malick fan and the film’s trailer suggests something quite magical. The reviews confirm my sense that this movie may be one of the few contemporary American films that aspire to the kind of consciousness raising that has been all but abandoned since Kubrick’s 2001: Space Odyssey and Peter Weir’s Fearless. Gaspar Noe’s Enter The Void stands alone among recent films that recognize cinema as a form of alchemy.

With Sean Penn and Brad Pitt in starring roles and the Palme D’Or,  it is conceivable that a pure art film may find an audience in the USA.

Tree Of Life opens next weekend in New York and L.A. and expands to other cities on June 3rd.