Like a 2-hour version of Brad Pitt's Chanel commercial
I'm really not sure what to think.
It did put me in a trance -- can't tell whether that's because it was meaningful or because it put me to sleep.
Considering the film's interest in commercial culture and advertising imagery, I don't think that's a mistake. One of the things Malick seems to be interrogating is the value of things we often consider meretricious, including Hollywood itself. I find it fascinating that he actually doesn't seem to be condemning its artifice - other filmmakers exploring this topic would likely choose to portray Hollywood and Las Vegas as tawdry simulacra in counterpoint to the spiritual "meaning" Rick lacks and yearns for, but Malick regards the flashiness and materialism as containing virtue of its own, as not being entirely void of inspiration. Notice how his camera looks upward in reverence at the fake Roman statues in Las Vegas the same way it peers upward into the sky. LA at night does not appear tacky but dreamlike and surreal with all of its billboards and golden light. Why can't there be aesthetic value in Brad Pitt's Chanel commercial? Can commercials not be art?
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