Days of Heaven is, in fact, what its highest praisers want you to believe: awe-inspiring cinema, sometimes even mind-blowing in what can be filmed and brought forth in a beautiful, seamless mold of narrative and poetry, photographed with an eye for the prairie and fields like very few others and for the period detail. But it's also wonderful- and haunting- because it evokes what it is to look back on something and remember things vividly, clearly, with a subjectivity that is startling in its scarred interior. This is child-actor Linda Manz, her first role in what is a relatively small career, and she voices, in grungy but fine vocal, from afar at times even as she's one of the principle players.

She's the kid sister of Bill (Richard Gere, a very good if not extraordinary performance compared to others),a factory worker who kills a man by accident and runs off with his girlfriend Abby (Brooke Adams),and the three of them end up working for a farmer (Sam Shephard),and soon there's a love triangle formed wrapped around an elaborate con of Bill and Abby being brother and sister. These are just the facts, but director Terence Malick isn't after just those, but after a sad look back from a perspective of wonderment and horror and a kind of fractured innocence. It goes without saying that since it is a Malick picture one will expect the painterly landscapes of the fields, those intimate close-ups with bugs and waving fields of grass. But Malick is able to put a unique vision into the perspective of that of a little girl, who is seeing and experiencing everything as it is, not as it may be really imagined or wanting to be.

So there's a lot of interest already just in the nature of the farming on this panhandle in early 20th century. But there's just little things, little fantastic bits that stick in your mind, probably forever: the workers in the field toiling away; the black man tap-dancing by the barn; the airplane circus people coming by and showing silent films. Most notably, as well, are near biblical visions like the plague (and extinguishing by lots of fire) of locusts. And through all of the many, many beautiful shots, there's a tender and perfectly tragic love story played out with great work by Adams and a young Shepherd. Manz too, I might add, is excellent in a role that could have been mucked up by anyone else (also trumping a later future first-time performance in Malick's own The New World with the woman playing Pocahontas).

And as if the crisp eye of Malick and his DPs Nestor Almendros and Haskell Wexler weren't enough, there's Ennio Morricone on the soundtrack to boot. Here's a crucial part of Malick's success in translating the theme of remembrance and feeling both the moment and the mood of the whole period and characters in the film (sometimes combined): just listen to the theme of the movie, used later in movie trailers and commercials, as it reckons a nostalgic tinge for something that one can't firmly grasp but is felt deeply and without really fully knowing the whole scope. Overall, Days of Heaven is almost too good, too beautiful- it's the kind of picture that defines reputations, for better or worse. Like Malick's. A+

"Days of Heaven" is a film that you need to have a lot of patience in order to watch. That's because this Terrence Malick film is very slow to unfold and made with a very deliberate pace. Many who NEED a film to move at a more 'Hollywoodized' pace will clearly give up on the movie--as the first half hour or so is very slow. Now I am NOT saying it's bad--just very slow. However, the film also is quite beautiful and is well worth your time if you are patient.

The film is set around 1916-1917. A trio of migrant farm workers (Richard Gere, Brooke Adams and Linda Manz) travel as brother and sisters--though they actually are not related. Their existence is very tough and very drab and Gere especially wants a better life. So, when the rich owner of one of the farms on which they are working (Sam Shepard) begins to show interest in Adams, Gere encourages her to marry him--even though Gere and Adams are actually lovers. Why? Because Gere overheard the owner and a doctor talking--and the man only has about a year to live. Gere figures that after a year, the three of them will own the place--and the marriage is a small price to pay. However, something goes wrong--Shepard does NOT die and a lot of tension develops on this lonely farm. And, the viewer knows it all must end in tragedy. The story is apparently based on a story by Alexander Dumas, though the original story might have been inspired by the story in Genesis of Abram and Sarai his wife in Egypt--where they pretended to be siblings and tragedy ensued.

I enjoyed this story mostly because it was well-crafted. The music was great and used "Carnival of the Animals - The Aquarium" by Camille Saint-Saëns (which was also used in "Babe"). The cinematography was also great--and conveyed a great sense of loneliness and the wide-open spaces. My only complaints are minor. Despite Malick taking years to finish this movie, there were some odd mistakes. For example, the planes in the film could NOT have been in Texas during 1916-1917 (see more in the Goofs section)--one was made much later and the other was busy blowing up Allied planes in Europe during this time (including American planes starting in 1917). I also thought the little sister character was a big mistake. Her character was not particularly needed and her narration was, at times, bizarre and distracting. And, the ending was a bit too protracted. Still, despite these minor quibbles, it was an interesting and finely made film...but also one that many people would find very slow.

I like Terrence Malick, I appreciate his style, I love his films. I adore Days of Heaven, for me it is perhaps my second favourite of his films with Thin Red Line just beating it.

The pace as is the case with Malick, I'd go as far to say it is a characteristic of his, is meditative, but deliberately so I think. I don't see it as a problem, in fact I think the pacing added to the film, it made us care for the characters and story more.

The film succeeded with that. The characters are those we empathise with, and the story is probably the most beautiful in tone and in development of all Malick's movies. The score is also beautiful and of haunting quality, and again as is the case with Malick the visuals are breathtaking particularly in the cinematography and scenery.

Also I don't think that Malick's direction has been as poetic as it has been here, that's not saying much though he is a very poetic and ambitious director, or that lead actor Richard Gere has been any better than he is in Days of Heaven. Overall, a wonderful film. 10/10 Bethany Cox