The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick, 2011)

Jessica Chastain, Laramie Eppler, Tye Sheridan, Hunter McCracken, and Brad Pitt
in The Tree of Life

Cast: Brad Pitt, Jessica Chastain, Sean Penn, Hunter McCracken, Laramie Eppler, Tye Sheridan, Fiona Shaw, Jessica Fuselier, Nicolas Gonda, Will Wallace, Kelly Koonce. Screenplay: Terrence Malick. Cinematography: Emmanuel Lubezki. Production design: Jack Fisk. Film editing: Hank Corwin, Jay Rabinowitz, Daniel Rezende, Billy Weber, Mark Yoshikawa. Music: Alexandre Desplat. 

I disliked The Tree of Life when I first saw it, finding it pretentious and overblown. Seeing it now, I can appreciate that there's a great movie tucked in among the pretentiousness, the reaching after some kind of metaphysical or theological statement. There's a gentle, subtle portrait of growing up in the film, somewhat akin to Richard Linklater's Boyhood (2014). I only wish that Terrence Malick had left the theology to the theologians, because what is overlaid on the story of the O'Brien boys and their parents is a muddle of cosmology, Judeo-Christian tradition, and a New-Agey view of the oneness of all life. Critically, the film was a huge success, winning the Palme d'Or at Cannes, getting three Oscar nominations (including one for best picture), and making several lists of the best films of the 21st century. It also features one of Brad Pitt's best performances, as the strict but loving father who suffers from disillusionment at the course his life has taken. I just wish more time had been spent on the backstory of Jessica Chastain's character, which is seen mostly from the rather Oedipal point of view of Jack, the oldest son who grows up to be Sean Penn. This is a very male-heavy movie. 

City of God (Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund, 2002)

City of God is an exceptionally involving docudrama that employs non-professional actors to stunning effect. The only experienced professional in the cast was Matheus Nachtergaele, who played the drug dealer known as "Carrot." The rest were mostly recruited from the streets and slums of Rio, and put through several months of training, largely under the supervision of Lund, who also worked with the cast during filming and is billed as "co-director." Lund had become familiar with Rio's slum-dwellers through her work on music videos and documentary films. The shape of the film, including its flashback structure and use of quick cutting and hand-held camera, is largely that of Meirelles, whose most recent work includes coverage of the opening ceremony of the 2016 Olympics in Rio. And that reliance on flashy camerawork and narrative tricks is, I think, the greatest flaw of City of God. It detracts from some of our involvement in the lives of its characters, turning away from documentary-like reality into sheer "movie-making." Nevertheless, the film successfully immerses us in the violent lives of the people of the favelas. It was a significant critical and even commercial hit, earning four Oscar nominations, a rare feat for a foreign-language film. It wasn't submitted by Brazil for the foreign-language Oscar, but instead was nominated for best director, best adapted screenplay (Bráulio Mantovani from the novel by Paulo Lins), cinematography (César Charlone), and film editing (Daniel Rezende). Some controversy arose when only Meirelles was cited in the directing nomination, but the Academy has strict eligibility rules, and Lund's credit of "co-director" was judged to be a disqualifier. Given my reservations about Meirelles's use of the camera, I think maybe Lund deserved the nomination more than he did.