The Tree of Life Blu-ray Review

Posted October 19th, 2011 by Brandon DuHamel

Aspect Ratio: 1:85:1
Video Codec: AVC/MPEG-4
Resolution: 1080p/24 (23.976Hz)
Audio Codec: English DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1, English Dolby 2.0 Surround
Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish
Region: A (Region-locked)
Rating: PG-13
Run Time: 139 Mins.
Discs: 3 (1 x Blu-ray + 1 x DVD + Digital Copy)
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Blu-ray Release Date: October 18th, 2011
List Price: $39.99

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Overall

The Film

Video Quality

Audio Quality

Supplemental Materials

Click thumbnails for high-resolution 1920X1080p screen captures

(Screen captures are lightly compressed with lossy JPEG thus are meant as a general representation of the content and do not fully reveal the capabilities of the Blu-ray format)

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The Film

The Tree of Life is writer/director Terrence Malick’s Palme D’or (2011 Cannes Film Festival)-winning opus to life’s spiritual journey. A visually stunning and impressionistic coming-of-age film turned on its head, The Tree of Life follows Jack (played as and adult by Sean Penn), the eldest son of a 1950′s Texas family who finds himself isolated in the cold modern world. Seeking answers to life’s mysteries and spiritual truths, he looks back at his life and the turbulent relationship with his father (Brad Pitt) while the burden of his sibling’s death at a young age hangs over him.

The film is a brilliant existential journey through the mind and soul that encapsulates what it means to be human, to be born, to grow up, and to question existence. Not since Kubick’s 2001 has a sequence in film has been more stunning and so at once meaningful than Tree of Life‘s spectacular “Creation” sequence that takes us from nebulous clouds, through explosive and fiery, volcanic Earth, to the depths of early seas, until finally dinosaurs walking the Earth, until we are brought back to a dreamlike state in the present (or is it past?) in the context of the film’s story. Marvelous.

Video Quality

Tree of Life was shot in a combination of 35mm, 65mm, and HD, and the end results are pure magic. Even in this AVC/MPEG-4 1080p/24 encodement on Blu-ray, the image is consistent across the board; everything is clean, sharp and detailed with richly saturated colors, deep blacks, spot on flesh tones and wide contrast. There is little noticeable grain or video noise in most of the scenes and no evidence of any harmful post processing or compression issues.

Audio Quality

The DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 soundtrack is also sublime. Whether it is the classical score emanating from the speakers with lush ambience, lots of air and great dynamics or the overall atmospherics of the mix, the sound of the breeze rushing through the back channels, a bird chirping off to the side, or just the clean and clear dialogue, this one is a winner.

Supplemental Materials

Unfortunately, for this sweeping cinematic journey, the supplements offered leave a bit to be desired. Only a run-of-the-mill featurette and trailer are provided on disc alongside the DVD and digital copy.

The supplements:

Exploring The Tree of Life (1.78:1; 1080p/24; 00:29:56)
Theatrical Trailer (1.85:1; 1080p/24)
DVD
Digital Copy

The Definitive Word

Overall:

This is one that has to be seen and it arrives in a reference Blu-ray release a little light on extras, but none the worse for it. I can imagine a film like this turning up as a Criterion Collection release some time down the line, but for now, this disc from Fox is a more than worthy stand in.