Days of Heav­en (1978)

Ter­rence Malick’s sec­ond fea­ture film rumi­nates over the migrant farm work­ers of the ear­ly 20^th cen­tu­ry, scat­ter­ing from one place to the next, drift­ing with the sea­sons. Richard Gere is Bill; a young, ambi­tious man, frus­trat­ed with his lot who takes a risk with his love, Abby, with the short-sight­ed hope of a big pay-off.

Trav­el­ling with his lit­tle sis­ter Lin­da, whose impro­vi­sa­tion­al insights recall this pock­et of time, Bill and Abby pass them­selves off as sib­lings to avoid chitchat and take up work har­vest­ing a wheat field. The lone­ly farm own­er falls in love with Abby at first sight and becomes the object of Bill’s quick fix scheme for wealth. Over­hear­ing that the Farmer will die soon, Bill urges Abby to mar­ry him for the inher­i­tance, fail­ing to con­sid­er the com­plex­i­ties of bar­gain­ing with human emotions.

Step­ping out of the play­wright shad­ows, Sam Shep­herd is the qui­et Farmer, watch­ing over his labour­ers from his man­sion that sticks out like a sore thumb on the land­scape, both beau­ti­ful and pitiable in its iso­lat­ed grandeur. Alien­at­ing and refined, his house mim­ics his awk­ward pres­ence, tow­er­ing with goth­ic pow­er on the out­skirts of life. With echoes of the Edward Hop­per paint­ing ​‘House by the Rail­road’, the lone­ly idyl radi­ates the vul­ner­a­ble air of tee­ter­ing on the brink of big change.

Chip­ping into the impres­sive tal­ent is com­pos­er Ennio Mor­ri­cone, whose score sweeps out of the film, majes­ti­cal­ly evok­ing a dawn of change with pen­sive pro­gres­sion; per­me­at­ing the events with fore­bod­ing and doubt. With its tale of a descent from par­adise, the sto­ry rum­bles with bib­li­cal under­cur­rents. Their days of heav­en are num­bered from the start, as Mal­ick warns, heav­en is unsus­tain­able with the weak­ness of mankind.

Human flaw steadi­ly eats away at the buds of hap­pi­ness that ten­ta­tive­ly flower. Relayed through the ret­ro­spec­tive impres­sions of young nar­ra­tor, Lin­da, the thoughts of the char­ac­ters and events are dis­tant and elu­sive. Detached from these adult dri­ves, the world is a mys­te­ri­ous chaos, where the dev­il has a lot to answer for.

Mal­ick dynam­i­cal­ly manip­u­lates audio­vi­su­al con­nec­tions, blur­ring per­spec­tives and inter­pre­ta­tion. Sud­den cuts of sound­track rever­ber­ate from one scene into the next, merg­ing sequences with inno­v­a­tive and strik­ing pow­er – the sound fre­quent­ly express­es the sto­ry with greater force than words. In the buildup to their escape to the peace­ful Tex­an fields, Bill lash­es out at his jeer­ing supe­ri­or, his heat­ed frus­tra­tion mut­ed by the thun­der­ous beat of the indus­tri­al fac­to­ry relent­less­ly smash­ing around them. Molten sparks erupt behind his head, form­ing an arc that apes the drowned out words he spits at his boss. Hot­head­ed, he scat­ters the seeds of destruc­tion ear­ly into the fab­ric of the film.

In their ear­ly days on the wheat field, the aes­thet­ics illus­trate the tran­quil­i­ty of their sur­round­ing envi­ron­ment. The restora­tion, care­ful­ly super­vised by Mal­ick gives strik­ing clar­i­ty to the cin­e­matog­ra­phy of Nestor Almen­dros and Haskell Wexler (who took over when Almen­dros had to go and shoot a film for François Truf­faut). Under strict instruc­tion not to veer into misty-eyed rosy qual­i­ties that would make the film gold­en or post­card per­fect, the restora­tion care­ful­ly empha­sis­es the nat­ur­al beau­ty they strived to cap­ture in the orig­i­nal vision.

The colours are mes­meris­ing. Malick’s love of ​‘mag­ic hour’ – the sliv­er of time when the sun has just dis­ap­peared but before night­fall, imbues the imagery with a soft opal hue. The sparse light­ing lends an authen­tic impres­sion of electricity’s ear­ly days, and under­scores their elu­sive, tran­si­to­ry oasis on the farm.

Lucid­ly appar­ent is the art of Ter­ence Malick’s film­mak­ing. Mal­ick demon­strates a sen­si­tiv­i­ty to expe­ri­ence and the ele­ments that trick­le into per­cep­tion, whether mis­lead­ing or arbi­trary, or intense. With a curios­i­ty in exis­tence, chance and dri­ves, Days of Heav­en observes the per­ilous course of the tan­gled trio, with the calm and the chaos that fluc­tu­ate beneath the unpre­dictabil­i­ty of life.