In ‘Knight of Cups,’ Malick expands the range of cinema
[...] the experience of the film is about something else, about creating a feeling of transcendence and joy through visual means.
Malick pulls into this film so many aspects of consciousness and so many moments of previously uncaptured stray experience that it’s like watching someone tap into the miraculous.
[...] what’s especially impressive and gratifying here is that he tried to do something similar with his previous film, “To the Wonder,” and failed.
[...] instead of retreating, he has gone deeper into this mature style, which relies on voiceovers — sometimes streams of consciousness, sometimes snatches of conversation —underlying footage of environments and people, sometimes alone and brooding, sometimes in combinations.
[...] as he moves into a scene of people talking, he drops the volume on the conversation, so that it’s barely heard.
The effect, which will drive some viewers crazy, is of never quite landing into a scene.
The setting is Los Angeles — from the rough to the insanely opulent — and Las Vegas, with the film arranged in several parts, each revolving around a different character, and each with a chapter head named for a tarot card.
[...] when we hear the father say, “It comes to me how tenderly you’d touch my face when you were four years old,” we feel that with an unexpected immediacy.
The movie benefits immeasurably from the cinematography of Emmanuel Lubezki (who has won three straight Academy Awards).
“Knight of Cups” is really like a religious vision in both senses of the term, in that it’s both a point of view and the vision itself.
Starring Christian Bale, Brian Dennehy and Cate Blanchett.