The Story of Heaven’s Days Coming to an End (Spoiler Alert)
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There are certain films that, from beginning to end, make you feel as though you’re gazing at a painted poem spread across the screen. ‘Days of Heaven (1978)’ is one such film. Like water that was right there in the palm of your hand, but slipped through your fingers leaving you thirsty still—thinking of that lost water brings a particular kind of ache. That subtle ache is called regret. Sorrow permeates the entire film—the sorrow of not being able to touch happiness that lies just within reach, the sorrow of regret accumulating endlessly in memory’s diary. Something dreamlike, yet not quite a dream—part surreal, part trance-born—scene after scene is arranged in this manner to create the film. The plot woven together with carefully crafted background music, combined with the exquisite blend of visuals, has kept this film unique for the past forty years.
Thirteen-year-old Linda pulls the entire film through her narration, taking it around various bends and through different textures. If we watch the film not through the lens of what’s happening there, but through Linda’s narration, the film’s meaning becomes something altogether different. It’s a startling experience. How so? Let me break it down.
Let me tell the film’s story briefly. Bill and Abby love each other. Bill works at a steel mill in Chicago. One day, by accident, Bill kills the mill foreman. After this, they flee to Texas, accompanied by Bill’s little sister Linda. There they take work at a farm. To avoid suspicion, they tell everyone they’re three siblings. The farm’s owner, a respectable farmer, takes a liking to Abby and wants to marry her. Bill learns that the farmer is ill and has only a few months to live, so he persuades Abby to agree to the marriage. After the wedding, the farmer, Abby, Bill, and Linda live happily together as a family of four. The farmer looks upon Bill as a brother, Linda as a sister. Meanwhile, the farmer gradually recovers his health, which makes Bill desperate to have Abby. Suddenly Bill discovers that Abby has begun to love the farmer a little. In truth, Abby was suffocating, trapped in this triangle of love. When the farmer becomes suspicious of Bill and Abby tells Bill this, Bill leaves Texas with a circus troupe.
A year passes. Bill returns. He comes and tells Abby he will leave them and go away. As they embrace to bid farewell, the farmer sees them from a distance. His old suspicions intensify. This makes him angry with Bill, and he threatens to shoot Bill dead. In self-defense, Bill drives something like a screwdriver into the farmer’s chest. The farmer dies. Then he flees with Abby and Linda in a boat. The farmer’s paternal foreman, who had suspected Bill and Abby all along, catches the three with police help. Bill dies in a shootout while trying to escape. Abby inherits the farmer’s property.
As a child, she used to dream of becoming a dancer when she grew up. She enrolls Linda in a dance academy and sends her to boarding school there. She boards a train with American soldiers heading off to participate in the First World War. Meanwhile, Linda goes to boarding school and meets her old friend there. The girl is older than Linda—they had met while working on the farm. The two of them run away from boarding school together.
Now let the film’s journey unfold through Linda’s eyes.
Linda loves her brother Bill. They have so much fun together, wandering the streets. So many people can’t even get food to eat, lying hungry on the streets. She doesn’t have that hardship. Bill dotes on her, and the two siblings live together in great joy.
Everyone knows Abby is their sister. They live together, work together, wander around together. Bill doesn’t want anyone to know what their relationship with Abby really is. It’s people’s habit—if you tell them something, they start talking about it whether they know about it or not.
One day this world will catch fire. Mountains will burn in flames, water will boil with fire. All creatures will be scorched by fire. People will cry out for help. Among them, those who are good will go to heaven; those who are bad, God won’t hear their calls—indeed, God won’t even understand that they’re saying something at all.
The farmer doesn’t know when he first saw Abby, or what about Abby caught his fancy. Perhaps Abby’s hair was blowing in the wind, and seeing that made him fond of her.
He knows he’s going to die. He knows there’s nothing to be done about it… In this world, you can live only once. I think, as long as you’re alive, live magnificently.
From sunrise to sunset, they work constantly. Never stop. Just keep working. You won’t work? You’ll be thrown out. They don’t need you. They’ll find someone else to replace you.
This farmer has lots of money. He’s a good man. Doesn’t harm anyone. If you gave him a flower, he’d keep that flower, wouldn’t throw it away. I feel bad for him. He has no one by his side, no one in his life to hold his hand when needed. He’s a good person—I truly feel bad for him.
He’s tired. Tired of living like everyone else. Nothing pleases him. Some people want more than what they get. Some people get more than what they want. I suppose that’s just how the world works.
Well, what will I become when I grow up? A soil doctor? Spend my life thinking about soil?
We’ve never been this wealthy, have we? I mean, this sudden living like royalty—that’s what I’m talking about. No work all day, just chat and lie around. Don’t have to do anything at all—that’s how the rich live, isn’t it?
I’ll have to make my heart settle in this farm. Whatever it takes! If necessary, I’ll do whatever I want. Roll around in the fields, talk to the wheat stalks. When I fall asleep, they too will talk with me. They’ll come into my dreams.
No one sends us letters. We don’t get any cards. Sometimes I feel very old, feel like my life is over! As if I’m no longer here!
His illness didn’t worsen; it stayed the same as before. He neither got sicker nor got better. They thought his illness should be getting worse—why isn’t it getting worse? Maybe someone gave him some very good medicine, or something like that, which has kept him stable. They shoot sick horses dead, but because he’s human, they can’t kill him.
The circus troupe came here. That was good. In these six months, I was suffocating. A change of air was needed. They were shouting. The big guy in the troupe told the little guy, I started it, now you do it too. The little one came and started. If you can’t do something good up on stage, they start fighting. The little one says, no, I didn’t do this. The big one says, yes, you did do this. You can’t understand what they’re actually doing. Watching their antics makes you feel stupid. A little way off, the devil sits watching them and laughing. He’s happy when he sees people doing bad things. Then he catches them and sends them to the snake house. The snakes eat their eyes, slowly devour them completely. The devil watches silently and laughs. I think such a devil was on the farm.
The farmer thought the girl loves me.
The farmer taught me piano. How to play it, how to make music. The farmer taught me. The farmer also taught me what exists where in this world.
Nobody is perfect. There never was any perfect person anywhere ever. Inside you is half devil, half angel. The girl had promised herself she would live well from now on. All the fault is hers alone. Whether she’s happy or sad doesn’t matter to her. She knows she’s made many mistakes; she also knows she’ll correct all those mistakes. When there’s mist on the river, and everything around is calm, the sun looks like a ghost. I never knew this before. You’ll see many people by the riverbank. But they’re so far away, you can’t see what they’re doing. They’re probably… asking for help or something else. It could even be that they’re trying to bury someone or something. We saw many trees, saw their leaves trembling. It looked as though some human shadows were coming toward you and blocking your path. The night owls screech so harshly, flying about. We didn’t know where we were going, what we were going to do. I’d never been on a boat before—that was my first time.
Some scenes were truly ghostly—seeing them gave me goosebumps. As if some cold hands were touching the back of my neck, and—and a dead person had come looking for me or something. I know this person, his name is… Blackjack. He had died. He had one leg, and he had died. And I think Blackjack was making that commotion.
That girl, she didn’t know where she was going, or what she was going to do. She had no money. Maybe she’ll meet someone or other. I want only good things to happen to her. She was my good friend.
What does it feel like? Doesn’t it feel as though Linda is actually the filmmaker Terrence Malick himself? In an enigmatic atmosphere, is he cleverly expressing his own thoughts about life through the mouth of thirteen-year-old Linda? Yet the way he has her speak is so perfect that we see Linda in the film sometimes giving narration in incorrect grammar. Natural! If a thirteen-year-old girl spoke in flawless grammar all the time, the film itself wouldn’t be flawless!