144. US director Terrence Malick’s sixth feature film “To the Wonder” (2012): Love your spouse in the context of divine love

T errence Malick’s films tend to perplex certain audiences. To the Wonder is likely to leave many viewers, used to the typical Hollywood movies with unambiguous narrative tales, totally stone cold. And yet it is true poetry on celluloid for others. Malick’s cinema is different from the average Hollywood fare. In many ways, To the Wonder is comparatively easy to appreciate amongst Malick’s body of work because this is a film that deals essentially with a regular man-woman love affair, a subject that would go down well with for most traditional movie-goers. However, it is the treatment of the subject that is so different from the usual fare, not the subject. A major difference that an attentive viewer will pick up is that when you hear the voice-over of Marina, the main protagonist, the constant occurrence of “you” in her monologue do not merely refer to her beau Neil but also to God. A viewer is likely to assume that she is addressing her male companion because he...