Days of Heaven (1978)

If Terrence Malick were put in charge of the world, this would be a better place to live. Seriously. Who else makes a war film ("The Thin Red Line"), and shows us the effects that bombs not only have on people, but birds and trees?

"Days of Heaven" is a late 70s classic film from this classic director/writer, who ought to work more. If you know Malick, you know that he isn't necessarily interested in the linear mechanics of plot or expository dialogue. The viewer needs to fill in some holes and suggestions that would otherwise kill the pace of Malick's art. His films movies seem like visual poems or glimpses of a person's memory, fragmented, but nonetheless beautiful (or scary).

Richard Gere plays a Chicago factory worker, who in a fit of rage, attacks his boss and then flees to Texas with his "sister" Abby (Brooke Adams), and a young friend (Linda Manz). They eventually find work on the endless fields of a dying wheat farmer (Sam Shepard), who soon falls for Abby, not realizing her "brother" is her lover. (Set in the early 1900, at the height of the Industrial Revolution, unmarried lovers were considered prime sinners in Christian America, hence the lie. Malick does not judge his characters.) The love triangle is, of course, doomed to a violent end.

The story is almost secondary to what's on film: the sight of two lovers looking at each other, then washing each other, or workers tiling in the fields, or giant polluting farm machines replacing those human hands. The film's climax involves hordes of locusts and a massive fire that burns the land, and it's breathtaking to watch.

One can't describe a Malick film; you just need to experience it. Every shot is an Andrew Wyeth painting come to life, and even without a lot of dialogue or character depth and motivation, "Days of Heaven" feels more alive than 99 percent of the films out there. The cast is marvelous, and Gere has never seemed more hungry and alive on screen than here. Shepard is equally amazing, and quite frankly one of the most sympathetic characters in the film. A+