The Voyage of Time

Early in Terrence Malick's film The Tree of Life (2011), a 17-minute sequence visually describes the history of the earth from the point of the Big Bang to the present day. The images in this sequence are mostly suggestive rather than literal. They focus especially on the first stirrings of life and spend some time with the dinosaurs, which some have made fun of. This sequence illustrates events in time that have led up to the present time of the film and the family which is its main concern. The point is, I think, that events in the present, however small or major, represent the culmination of every moment since the universe began. Voyage of Time: Life’s Journey (2016), also directed by Malick, runs parallel to The Tree of Life, especially the long sequence at its beginning. The Voyage of Time is a documentary history of the universe and the development of life on our planet leading up to the present. It too relies on a sequence of suggestive images, some of them set in the present day as Malick draws parallels between teaming schools of fish in the ocean and animal herds on the prairies of Africa with crowds of human beings. Most of the scenes involving modern humans seem to be set in Asia, but we see briefly other parts of the world as well.

The Voyage of Time is not just a documentary about natural history. It's a sustained and often moving meditation on the meaning of it all. A voiceover narrator (Cate Blanchett) addresses the Mother, which Malick takes to be as God. The film contemplates faith, spiritual doubt, the relationship that the speaker (and by extension Malick) has with God. The speaker often questions God, asking, "Where are you? Why are you not here?.” Is this a reference to the modern world, its discord and uproar?

The film’s imagery is beautiful. It focuses both on the natural world: frozen regions, mountains, the ocean, and so on. But it also focuses on life. We see representations of early life in the ocean, microorganisms, amphibians, early reptiles, and dinosaurs. Then we move gradually towards the present day. A sequence late in the film shows early humans on the plains of Africa, hunting and interacting in social groups, playing, and laughing. This scene parallels the dinosaur early in the film searching for its missing mother. The yearning for a Mother, a Creator, is the film’s larger context. Individual organisms and animals seem to have agency. They’re part of a pattern. They're not merely wandering without purpose. They have intentions, they reproduce, become ill, die.

Special effects are hardly noticeable. The dinosaurs are shown simply as themselves, as dinosaurs, not especially huge or loud, not menacing, just creatures of their time. This aspect of the film impressed me.

The Voyage of Time is a deeply religious film. It's about faith and God. It takes the tone of the Book of Job from the Old Testament. It has a culminating effect on the viewer. At least it did on me. And by the time it ended, I found myself moved even though I don’t share Malick's religious beliefs. My only problems with the film concern the fact that there was a certain randomness to some of the images, and that Malick tended to show them too quickly so that one doesn't have time to take them in, but rather has to absorb them as elements in a quickly moving sequence.

There are few films like this one. Its intelligence is informed by science and by faith. It is not currently available in the United States, apparently because of a lawsuit by one of the companies that produced earlier films by Malick. I hope to see it officially available here soon.