It's time to look at Terrence Malick, one of the most divisive directors of all time. Critics can't seem to agree on whether or not he's a genius or if his movies are completely meaningless. Case and point; The Tree of Life.

There are some aspects of his work that people can agree on like the visuals. I mean, just look at it. This has often been called on the most beautiful movies of all time for a good reason. I wanted to make this thread shorter, but I couldn't narrow down the screencaps any more.

The movie was filmed using natural lighting and the camera movies around a lot in a way that's less cinematic and more personal if you know what I mean. It was even nominated for an Academy Award, but lost to The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. What a shame.

They would build the same rooms in different houses that were facing different directions just so they could get the lighting exactly how they wanted it.

Then, we have the universe sequence. While most of the movie is grounded and relatable, this is one of the most spectacular sequences ever put to film. Every shot is good enough for @OnePerfectShot to tweet about. The most unbelievable part is how they made it.

Is it computer generated? No, is it real footage of supernovas from NASA? No, but I would have believed that if I didn't know how the really did it. Malick doesn't like CGI, so he decided to bring Douglas Trumbull who figured out a way to do it with practical effects.

That's right. All of these images were man-made and filmed with a camera. According to Trumbull, "We worked with chemicals, paint, fluorescent dyes, smoke, liquids, CO2, flares, spin dishes, fluid dynamics, lighting and high speed photography to see how effective they might be.

"It was a free-wheeling opportunity to explore, something that I have found extraordinarily hard to get in the movie business. Terry didn't have any preconceived ideas of what something should look like."

"We did things like pour milk through a funnel into a narrow trough and shoot it with a high-speed camera and folded lens, lighting it carefully and using a frame rate that would give the right kind of flow characteristics to look cosmic, galactic, huge and epic."

So, yeah. Those are hand down the best practical effects I've ever seen. I don't get why people don't bring them up more often. There are also some CGI dinosaurs for a few minutes, and they look alright. They get their point across and aren't there for very long.

The acting is pretty good too. Before I saw too many movies with him, I assumed Brad Pitt was just a big name because of the movies he was in rather than his acting talent. I'm glad to have found out I was wrong.

The music is also great. Any movie that makes good use of classical movies gets extra points from me.