The Tree of Life caused quite a stir at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year – some liked it, some didn’t – but it went on to win the Palme d’Or anyway.

The movie marks the return of filmmaker Terrance Malick as he reunites with Thin Red Line actor Sean Penn.The movie also stars Brad Pitt as well as Jessica Chastain and Hunter McCracken.

Malick’s first film in six years, The Tree Of Life is a hymn to life, excavating answers to the most haunting and personal human questions through a kaleidoscope of the intimate and the cosmic, from the raw emotions of a family in a small Texan town to the wildest, infinite edges of space and time, from a boy’s loss of innocence to a man’s transforming encounters with awe, wonder and transcendence.

An impressionistic story of a Midwestern family in the 1950′s, the film follows the life journey of the eldest son, Jack, through the innocence of childhood to his disillusioned adult years as he tries to reconcile a complicated relationship with his father (Brad Pitt). Jack (played as an adult by Sean Penn) finds himself a lost soul in the modern world, seeking answers to the origins and the meaning of life while questioning the existence of faith.

Through Malick’s signature imagery, we see how both brute nature and spiritual grace shape not only our lives as individuals and families, but all life.

The Tree of Life is released 8th July. Take a look at the trailer for the movie: