92/100

"You know how people are. You tell them something, they start talking."

A tale of locusts and fire, encased in paradise. Terrence Malick's utopia is found and lost; a fractured love triangle shown through wheat fields and the sweat of labor. Nature is pronounced, biblical, and grandiose. It's as if every bird and bug acknowledges the glances and acts of violence and interprets them as universal deeds, carried through time so that God's primordial wrath may be recognized. While Malick's Badlands envisions Eden as place of restriction for Kit and Holly, Days of Heaven sends Bill, Abby, and Linda to an idyll realm drenched in orange and yellow hues and rich with opportunity. Eventually their Heaven distorts from a restful paradise into a minefield of temptation, yet Malick films it all with detached empathy for their actions and ramifications, passing the torch to Nature's unruffled indifference as our flawed subjects try to hide among the shelter of the leaves and shrubs.