The new movie "The Tree of Life" created a big bang in the audience during its premiere Monday at the Cannes Film Festival.
The film was met with "boos" scattered throughout the audience. Supporters retaliated with a standing ovation, according to Entertainment Weekly.
Brad Pitt stars as a father raising three boys in Waco, Texas. The film mixes family struggles with scenes of a chaotic creation of the universe. Director Terrence Malick attempts to illustrate a parallelism between the origins of life on earth to the origin of life within a pregnant woman.
The film created dialogue on faith and life, which led to comments from Pitt on his religious upbringing and how that compares to his character.
"I grew up being told that 'God is going to take care of everything and it doesn't always work out that way; and if it doesn't, that's God's will.' I've got my issues," Pitt said at a press conference, according to the Wall Street Journal. "Many people find religion gives them opportunities. I found it very stifling as an individual and a tightness to it that the father character carried with him."
Manohla Dargis, a chief film critic of The New York Times, offered up remarks about the film's ponderous nature.
"('The Tree of Life') serves as a reminder of how few contemporary filmmakers engage questions of life and death, God and soul, and risk such questioning without the crutch of an obvious story," Dargis wrote.
"The Tree of Life" opens to general audiences May 27.
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