Badlands is, without doubt, one of the finest directorial debuts of all time. It is a lyrical and disturbing road movie produced by a filmmaker who, despite his inexperience, managed to craft one of the great films of the decade in this warped romantic adventure about two young lovers and their senseless killing spree across the Dakota badlands.

Over the course of five decades Terrence Malick has become recognised as one of the greatest filmmakers of his, or any other, generation yet his considerable talent is already present in every frame of his haunting debut as if his skill as a visual storyteller emerged effortlessly and fully-formed with this first attempt. There really are few first films as confident and…

Facts.

Holly is a naive, young girl. She has (/had) a dog. She is scared of being with Kit; she is scared of being without him. Kit is a lonely young man. He found a toaster. He is impulsive and charismatic and utterly insane. Badlands is all about the facts.

If I could ask Mr. Malick one question, it would be when facts ceased being sufficient to convey his vision. Badlands is an exceptional example of how fine a movie can be when it is straightforward, compelling, and 'easy' (which is a dirty word in some circles, apparently). This is not a dig against his emerging style as a purveyor of visualized emotion, but an appreciation of his skill at…

93/100

"I'll kiss your ass if he don't look like James Dean."

Eden ripped to shreds. Terrence Malick's debut feature is an American dream in all its tranquility and outrage, contrasting the tedium of innocence with the rebellion of boundless sunsets and an eternal joyride of attachment. Kit and Holly were made for each other, as the saying goes, but that instant affection moves beyond love, instead speeding towards the resounding finality of damnation. Malick thrives in the visual construction of his worlds, expressing purity with the sight of beaming white short shorts and persuasive dread through a protective Father catching a glimpse of his worst nightmare in a mirror. Speeding cars feel less like a method of transportation and…

Director Terrence Malick's feature film debut is a beautifully shot, elegantly crafted & fluidly narrated crime drama that wonderfully exhibits his cinematic eye for detail & breathtaking imagery and also happens to be his most accessible film to date.

Having gained a significant cult following over the years, this classic has a lot in store for both fans & detractors of this filmmaker, as the former will find an early glimpse of Malick's blossoming talent while latter will be pleased with the absence of those rambling philosophical voice-overs.

Loosely based on the real-life murder spree of Charles Starkweather & his adolescent girlfriend Caril Ann Fugate in 1958, Badlands tells the story of Holly Sargis; a young teen who falls for an older rugged guy…

In 1958, Charles Starkweather (age 20) and Caril Ann Fugate (age 14) went on a killing spree, murdering 11 people. This story serves as the basis for Malick's Badlands an amoral exploration of solitude, nihilism and love.

Malick's debut is an astonishing piece of cinema. The story he tells is simple and is filled with simple characters. This is something I always find in his films. But in Malick's particular niche of cinema it isn't always about the story, it is about evoking a sensation and conveying themes. And even though he is hesitantly discovering the boundaries of how far he can reach as an artist, he has already developed a sense of the lyrical realism that has become his…

To me, there's something uncannily familiar with the atmosphere of this film. It's almost presented in two chapters- a tale of paradise lost told in emergence of paradise before devolving into the loss of it. And both segments feel wildly different, due literally in the story to the geographical factors, and used, in the magic of filmmaking, as a symbol. The first half begins in suburban banality, before the protagonist (who in this case serves as narrator and perspective for the story) meets Kit and, through misguided thought, sees as her "hero" whom shall certainly save her from the aching dullness of her life.

Things go along looking virtually the same; there's this stunning, rich, green light that invades each…

In his debut, Terrence Malick is an uncanny creator of pearlescent forms, a very stark balladeer, Mark Twain’s coolly ferocious heir. Small-town life in the 1950s makes for a void quickly filled with outlaw vanity and magazine-stand enchantment, garbage-man punk (Martin Sheen) and teenage baton-twirler (Sissy Spacek) meet and harmonize apathetic psyches in "the big marble hall" of Nature. He's a James Dean wannabe or Billy the Kid perhaps, acting mostly with his shoulders and pockets, a scarecrow with a rifle in the fields and suddenly a cracker-barrel philosopher when facing a recorder. She reads gravelly from Hollywood gossip digests and is told to enjoy the scenery, a freckle-dotted blank sheet of paper crouching by her murdered father (Warren Oates)…