In a March 2011 NYT review of Tree of Life , AO Scott explains one of the achievements of this great movie: “There are very few films I can think of that convey the changing interior weather of a child’s mind with such fidelity and sensitivity. Nor are there many that penetrate so deeply into the currents of feeling that bind and separate the members of a family. So much is conveyed — about the tension and tenderness within the O’Brien marriage, about the frustrations that dent their happiness, about the volatility of the bonds between siblings — but without any of the usual architecture of dramatic exposition. One shot flows into another, whispered voice-over displaces dialogue, and an almost perfect domestic narrative takes shape.”

Watching it for the fourth time recently, I was struck by the fittingness of the fragmentation in Malick’s retelling of the O’Brien family history.

In one scene, Mrs. O’Brien runs carrying toddler Jack away from what appears to be a man having an epileptic fit on the lawn. In another scene, she gives a cup of water to a prisoner being packed into the back of a police car. Neither scene is longer than a few seconds. There are stories in each of those moments, perhaps enough story to make a separate film. Malick doesn’t linger, but gives us only an elusive glimpse. Some have called this pretentious; I think rather it is realism: In Malick’s telling, the O’Brien’s story resembles a bricolage of memories, a series of “remember that time that . . . ” moments that don’t need to be told in full.

I was also struck by the success of the techniques that Malick uses to round his characters and themes. The juxtaposition of images and voice-overs is important throughout the film. “Where were you?” - in context the anguished prayer of Mrs. O’Brien after her sons’s death - opens up the evolution sequence, and other whispered prayers during that sequence keep reminding us of why Malick is telling the story of the world’s origin in the middle of the story of the O’Brien family. At other times, the image and the voice-overs give us contrasting evaluations of the character. In one scene, Mr. O’Brien is roughhouses with his boys in their bedroom. Without the voice-over it would be a scene of sheer childhood delight. But in the voice-over embittered teenage (or preteen) Jack complain of his father’s hypocrisy and bullying; if we just had the voice-over, Mr. O’Brien would seem a monster, and we might expect scenes of vicious beatings to accompany it. Put the image and the voice-over together, and Malick creates a human being.