With Voyage of Time: Life’s Journey, Terrence Malick returned to the Venice Film Festival four years after competing for the Golden Lion with To the Wonder. Malick’s Voyage of Time is a documentary exploration of Earth’s past and an inquiry into the future of humankind, presented in an updated style that somewhat divided critics and even more so audiences with The Tree of Life.
The voiceover explaining the film is that of Cate Blanchett in its international theatrical release, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival (and that of Brad Pitt, who also produced the film, in the 40-minute IMAX version).
We also have spectacular images of the galaxy: the cinematography by Paul Atkins (who has worked for IMAX and on similar projects for National Geographic and the BBC) and the visual effects by Dan Glass, both collaborators of the director on The Tree of Life, are admirable. And, of course, there are dinosaurs.
Everything we see in Voyage of Time is beautiful, as if beauty itself ignites the director’s impulse to lead us by the hand, ecstatically contemplating the mysterious nature of the world. With each film, Malick seems to strive to refine his transcendent vision and present it to us as a kind of cinematic symphony, for which he could easily draw inspiration from religious composers like Arvo Pärt.
It’s a shame that, in his insistence on guiding us through words that fall far short, Malick doesn’t allow us to lose ourselves a little more. The German company Sophisticated Films is co-producing Voyage of Time with the United States, and its international sales are being handled by the French company Wild Bunch.