7. KNIGHT OF CUPS

lthough many critics may think they have his style pegged down, Terrence Malick constantly proves himself to be an evolving, formally adventurous filmmaker who resists easy categorisation. Up until 2011’s , there was a fixed idea of what we may expect from a Malick film: a period setting; an epically-scaled narrative told through impressionistic montage; a sustained study of man’s relationship with the natural world. When Malick first set his camera it was undeniably jarring - the director’s ethereal style seemed an odd match for the ultra-modern, post-industrial cityscape through which the adult Jack (Sean Penn) drifts. Camera moves familiar from the director’s earlier films reappear, but now with different connotations: a low-angle shot of a skyscraper reaching towards the sky is a direct parallel to the final image of , but in that film a tree acts as a bridge between the tangible world and the heavens. Here, the image of the monolithic building is cold and foreboding.