Days of Heaven [Blu-ray]

"Days of Heaven" is set in the year 1916. America is becoming more and more industrialized as time goes on. In one Chicago steelmill, Bill (Richard Gere) attacks a foreman and is forced to go on the run. He takes along his girlfriend, Abby (Brooke Adams) and his younger sister Linda (Linda Manz) with him to Texas. The three of them find employment as laborers with a wealthy farmer (Sam Shepard) with Bill passing off Abby as his sister. Eventually, the farmer and Abby marry after Bill tells her he discovered that the farmer is ill and will soon die. Once the farmer passes away, Bill and Abby will be able to live off his wealth and leave behind their nomadic lifestyle. However, the farmer manages to hold onto his health and tragedy strikes when he eventually discovers the true relationship between Bill and Abby.

All of the praise "Days of Heaven" has received over its visual splendor is well deserved. Malick has always had an eye for filming nature in all its beauty and the way he employs the sky, the streams, the wheat fields, and the animals of the prairies in his narrative essentially establishes nature itself as a character in the film. The musical score of Ennio Morricone is equally compelling and perfectly captures the varying moods the characters go through. However, the one element that keeps "Days of Heaven" from being considered a true masterpiece is its story. The love triangle that lies at the core of the film is nothing more than a run-of-the-mill soap opera drama. Manz's recollection of the events through her narration gives the events an added dimension as the tale becomes intertwined the loss of her innocent childhood. Yet, the story unfortunately does not rise to the same level with the images and music that accompany it. Still, "Days of Heaven" should still be watched. There is a power in the imagery of the film that must be seen. Additionally, all of the principal actors are outstanding with the lesser known Adams and Manz being true revelations. One wishes both actresses made more films as their talent shines through in every frame they are in.

The film surrounds a love triangle between a little girl's brother (Richard Gere), his lover (Brooke Adams) and her terminally ill farmer husband (played by Sam Shepard, who she married for the purpose of inheriting his money after his inevitable death). But this story isn't being told from the perspective of those three adults, but from the perspective of that little girl (played by Linda Manz, who hauntingly provides a voice-over of stunning power) who is, at the time, naive and unaware of the deeper regions of each adult's psyche. She is retelling a part of her life and coming to terms with it.

Many of the emotions and strong story points of the love triangle are, with dialogue, rather succinct. But what expresses the emotion is not their speech, but the landscape and nature itself. For instance, there is an intense moment of furious anger, and the oncoming danger is represented by a swarm of disgusting locusts, while the anger is presented as a thriving, uncontrollable power by an equally uncontained fire sprawling across the Texan prairie. Terrence Malick did a masterful job in realizing the power of telling the story from the little girl's perspective, taking advantage of a great cinematographer and a great landscape.

I recommend this film to painters, fans of romance, fans of generally wonderful cinema and to fans of brilliant cinematography. It may seem overlong to some depending on how you like the mood and emotions of a film to be expressed. But nevertheless, it's one of the greater movies I've seen in a while; not one to be missed.