Filmmaker hits his stride at age 70

He's the most mysterious director on the planet. With just six feature-length films, made over four decades, Terrence Malick has garnered a god-like reputation in cinema. Critics apply words such as "elegiac" and "soulful" to his work. Hollywood stars, from Sean Penn and Brad Pitt to Christian Bale and Ryan Gosling, flock to work with him. "Everybody - actor, crew member, audience - knows that when they go into a Malick film," says producer Nicolas Gonda, "they're going to have a unique experience."

It's been that way since his 1973 debut work, Badlands, inspired by the 1958 killing spree of Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate. Yet part of what adds fuel to the Malick experience is his shadowy existence. Like authors J.D. Salinger or Thomas Pynchon, he has stayed away from the limelight. Politely refusing to take part in promotional activities - no interviews, red carpet or even photos - the filmmaker has added an indelible layer of secrecy to his image.

But Olga Kurylenko, who starred in Malick's To the Wonder (2012), sees another reason for the director's public reticence. "It's not [about being] secretive," she says. "He's shy. I think he can't talk about himself. He could probably talk to you about something else, but not about himself. He's not that kind of person. He's not that vain."

What about discussing his work? "Would you really want him to chew it all up for you? That's why his movies are mysterious. He doesn't want to break it all [down]," she says.

The aura around Malick - now 70 - also comes from the 20-year gap between his second film, 1978's Days of Heaven, set in 1916 Texas, and his third, 1998's The Thin Red Line. Rumour had it that he disappeared to Paris to work on a film called Q that was later abandoned. Already divorced, he met Michèle Morette, a Parisienne with a daughter who lived in his apartment block; they married and eventually returned to Texas, where Malick had grown up.

Much of this is hinted at in To the Wonder, in which Kurylenko's single mother Marina heads in the same direction, to be with Ben Affleck's character (who, like Malick's own geologist father, spends his time examining oil spills). Later, he is drawn back to an old flame, played by Rachel McAdams; likewise, Malick divorced Morette in 1998, and married Alexandra Wallace - said to be his high school sweetheart from his days at St Stephens Episcopal School in Austin, Texas.

Wallace, unlike Malick, is not camera-shy. She introduced the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival screening of To the Wonder. "My husband sends salutes to the men and hugs to the women," she said. "We love Canada, and, in fact, we thought about becoming Canadian citizens after 9/11. We have much to learn from you." Making a sly dig at aggressive US foreign policy - just before the 11th anniversary of the September 11 terror attacks on the World Trade Centre - it left onlookers in no doubt as to Malick's politics.