'The Tree of Life' is mystical, mundane

It's one thing to begin at the beginning, quite another to do what Terrence Malick does in his new film, "The Tree of Life." To tell the story of Jack O'Brien (Sean Penn), a man raised by a domineering father (Brad Pitt), Malick goes further than mere flashbacks. He reaches back to the creation of the universe.

That means you'll witness not only computer-animated dinosaurs -- baby parasaurolophuses, by the look of them -- but the first churnings of the primordial ooze. Appearing occasionally is an orange light twisting in a black void, perhaps representing a presence that will outlast this story and all others.

Are you ready for this, America, after years of bromances and sexy vampires? (In France they wavered, booing the film at Cannes but awarding it the top prize anyway.) The film is not entertainment, but art, and of the most purely personal kind. Even its seemingly traditional scenes -- of family dinners with Pitt and Jessica Chastain as the unnamed parents, and Hunter McCracken as the young Jack -- have a cosmic feel. Characters speak in unmouthed whispers or prayers ("We cry to you, my soul, my son") while Emmanuel Lubezki's astounding cinematography alternates between dreamy landscapes and skin-tingling close-ups.

For all its Transcendentalist mysticism and blatant Kubrickisms, "The Tree of Life" runs into mundane problems, namely the art-film cliche (robed figures wandering a heavenly beach) and a neat ending that belies the difficult two-plus hours that came before. Still, even at its most ridiculous, it's a film that demands to be taken seriously. If you're not up for it, there's always "Green Lantern."