Well, does this 'Tree of Life' bear fruit?

Can the rest of us play Terrence Malick's game and get away with it?

If I were to try, I'd put out word that I've been working on a movie for 10 years. Why be skimpy? Let's say I've been working on it 20 years. The concept is elusive. I can't tell you anything about it. It's secret. Interviews are out of the question.

Would that make it the most anticipated movie of the year? Would you call me genius and expect the oncoming film to be a masterpiece? Apparently, from what happened with the advance hoopla on "The Tree of Life," it's not as far-fetched as you might think.

There's something irresistibly intriguing about the unknown. For this reason, dumb, quiet people often get more credit than relatively smart, talkative people. Think about it.

Malick surely is in a different league. Not since Orson Welles has there been so much oohing and ahhing about so little. He's made only five movies in 45 years, but nonetheless, he is often hailed as a legendary American filmmaker.

To be honest (aren't I always?), his movies can be stunning but just as often exasperating. "Badlands" with Sissy Spacek and Martin Sheen had a rough Americana about it, although, like most of his films, it tended to tell us what it should have shown. The photography in "Days of Heaven" was as beautiful as any caught on film. "The Thin Red Line" tried to make World War II poetic, although it was way too long.

"The New World," filmed locally, was a beautiful bore and the one I can't quite forgive. It failed in making its point that the transference of European greed was not really a "new" world at all. Although mist-ily photographed, it was shabbily edited and altogether his worst film.

Malick's idea for "The Tree of Life," a film to explore the origins of life on Earth, has been in the works since the 1970s. Heath Ledger was set for the lead and Colin Farrell was discussed. Brad Pitt, who is one of the producers, eventually took the part of the strict father. News got out that it took three years just to edit the film and that its proposed premiere at the Cannes Film Festival had been delayed for several years. That's a lot of information for a film supposedly shrouded in secrecy.

Though Malick took the time to fly to France for the festival, he refused all interviews and didn't show up to accept the coveted top prize. The film received boos as well as applause at Cannes.

"The Tree of Life" arrived at the Naro Expanded Cinema in Norfolk with more baggage than hallelujahs. It has widely divided the audiences there.

Fully prepared to take on the film snobs who were likely to scream "masterpiece" before the first reel unspooled, I settled in. (The film was not made available for review before opening - carrying the "secrecy" another step.) After "New World," I fully expected pretension, self-indulgence, posing and, yes, ambition. The film has all that, but I come away not being able to declare that the emperor has no clothes.

The film, on one level, is a simple family drama of growing up in the 1950s in Waco, Texas (which happens to be Malick's hometown). The father is God-fearing and stern, determined to instill in his three sons a respect for discipline. While we learn that he never missed a day of work at the factory, we also see him traveling around the world to peddle his patents. The mother is an otherworldly redhead (Jessica Chastain) who forgives and hugs her sons when the father chastises them. The narrative (when it is present) centers on young Jack (Hunter McCracken), who hates his father but adores his mother.

None of this is learned in usual narrative style. It is a movie told more in subliminal suggestion than dramatic statement.

And, yes, there are dinosaurs, as pre-release rumors implied. The opening volley of soul-searching and questioning evolves to questions of our beginnings. This is reason enough, maybe, to unleash scenes that depict the volcanic beginnings of Earth with underwater jellyfish and sharks before finding a dinosaur on land. In a moment of blessed compassion, the dinosaur pulls back from stepping on a fellow being.

It makes me recall the scary telephone calls I got, as a rookie critic, about "2001: A Space Odyssey" from readers who eagerly hoped my review would explain what it all "meant." Times haven't changed. I still don't feel up to the task, but "meaning" isn't the point.

In spite of its posing, a hypnotic attraction keeps us intrigued and trying to put together the visual jigsaw puzzle. Some will be infuriated after sitting through two hours of this, but it still must get points for its ambition. It will be difficult to keep it off the year-end Top 10 list. If you choose to see "The Tree of Life" the best way to get through it is not to think. It provides impressions, not thoughts.

I've always been suspicious of critics who claim that a movie has to be "experienced" rather than just seen. It's true, however, of "Tree of Life." The bits of information are given sparsely - much in the way we would get them in life.

Mal Vincent, (757) 446-2347, mal.vincent@pilotonline.com