THE significance of the Knight of Cups in the Tarot offers wide variations, no more surprisingly than would any other cabalistic practice.

Writer/director Terrence Malick’s seventh film since “Badlands” (released in 1973 and to my way of thinking, his best) is a puzzle.

Like all good puzzles, it challenges those seeking its solution. For many people, “Knight Of Cups” is likely to transform puzzlement into bafflement.

Does bafflement signify a good puzzle? Short on dialogue, graced by intermittent narration by Ben Kingsley, it presents a strong documentary ambience that relies heavily on images to tell us what’s going through Malick’s mind.

Christian Bale plays Hollywood screenwriter Rick, wandering among people – people working in film, wannabee film people, cultured wealthy people, uncultured wealthy people, beautiful people dependent on their bodies to raise them to the position they aspire to on fame’s ladder, homeless and displaced people sleeping rough on footpaths.

Juxtapositions such as these, together with visual statements offering a range of behavioural and environmental contrasts, probably deliver messages to Tarot believers. The film does indeed deliver messages, but they need no Tarot augmenting. What I see will likely not mean the same as the meaning you get. I enjoyed the film’s challenges. But I found their intentions baffling. Christian Bale has been quoted as feeling similarly!

At Palace Electric