There has never been any debate as to whether Terrence Malick delivered an aesthetically moving experience in his second film, Days of Heaven. However, many have struggled to answer the question, which the viewer and the critic seem obliged to ask: “what was the film about?” Or, alternatively “what was the point – moral, political, or otherwise – of the film?” And, there is reason Days of Heaven presents such a challenge in this department.
    Perhaps, Malick is implicitly asking us not to ask those questions by not providing clear or coherent answers in his film; perhaps, he is asking us to do or not to do something else. Perhaps, he is asking us to watch and listen but not to think and analyze.
    If we, as an audience, are obliged to ask the above questions, then I believe the best course of action is to listen to the narrator, Linda. We resist this task because, in our society, we refuse to listen to the youth and children; and instead, the adult population patronizes the young ad nauseum. Always sure that their age and experience equate knowledge and wisdom, adults have made a habit of inoculating the youth with their propaganda in order to solidify their outdated modes of morality and philosophy. This is why this film makes little sense to those like Harold C. Schonberg, who in 1974, pronounced, “Days of Heaven never really makes up its mind on what it wants to be.” The question presupposes that people, places, and things have to decide on an intractable identity and ignorantly ignores the transience of our existence.
    In the last line of the film, Linda epitomizes the simple yet profound wisdom of the young by stating quite matter of factly, “I was hopin’ things would work out for her. She was a good friend of mine.” I can dig that kind of goodwill.