Badlands

   If you plan on seeing Terrence Malick's new film The Tree of Life (Brad Pitt, Sean Penn), you may want to watch this one first.  Malick only makes about one movie a decade and Badlands was his '70s debut feature length film.  Since 1973, he has only directed five films.  Perhaps the most recognizable picture in his catalog is The Thin Red Line, his war epic starring Jim Caviezel and Sean Penn from 1998.  Needless to say, when Malick makes a film, people get excited.  
  Badlands stars Martin Sheen and an almost unrecognizable Sissy Spacek as two young lovers who leave a trail of dead in the Dakotas.  It is loosely based on the true story of the 1958 killing spree that Charles Starkweather and his much younger girlfriend Caril Ann Fugate embarked on throughout the badlands of the upper mid-west.  Kit, Sheen's character in the film, is employed as a garbage collector at the onset of the story and soon meets Holly when she is innocently twirling a baton in her front yard.  One of the first questions that Kit asks Holly is "You wanna go for a ride?" to which she responds, "No, I got homework."  She should have ran inside, picked up her pencil and school binder and never looked back.  To describe the next few months of their lives together as a ride is a vast understatement. 
  "I'll try anything once," Kit tells Holly as their romance blossoms, against the wishes of her loving father.  Spacek provides the Malick-trademark voice-over in this film with heart-breaking innocence and uncertainty.  In a scene that seems to come out of nowhere, Kit murders Holly's dad after he threatens to call the police if Kit doesn't stay away from his daughter.  Perhaps because she is so enamored by Kit, this doesn't seem to affect Holly all that much.  She loves how much he resembles James Dean.  As they flee Holly's home town and make a run for Montana, their relationship is reminiscent of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow.  Kit kills just about every person that they come in contact with as they travel north.  Holly's innocence triggers an internal struggle inside her - she doesn't agree with what Kit is doing, but seems to enjoy the excitement enough to not try and stop him. 
   Malick shows off his love for nature and landscape in this film, as he does in his subsequent projects.  He incorporates close-up shots of people, animals and plants as he tries to capture the characteristics of the setting.  No one films landscape quite like Malick.  His movies are visually stunning.
   Eventually, Kit and Holly get caught by authorities somewhere in North Dakota.  Kit loves the national attention this brings him.  He seems thrilled when the sheriff's deputy says he is a dead ringer for James Dean.  Kit is a talker, and Martin Sheen brings a tremendous amount of likeability to the role - the way he speaks to people is quite charming.  Kit tells the police that "he always wanted to be a criminal, just not this big of one."   Upon being arrested, he didn't seem to comprehend the gravity of what he had done.  He jokes and laughs with the police and national guardsmen, like a celebrity would do on the red carpet while soaking up flash bulbs.  He thrived in the publicity and attention he was receiving from everyone.
   I've now seen 60% of Malick's films and I find it interesting to see what he was doing at the beginning of his career and how his style has pretty much remained constant throughout the years.  He excels at identifying the pulse of the landscape purely through his visuals.

(note: My next post will be a discussion on Malick's new film The Tree of Life, out in theaters now.)