photographer
It took me 8 years, from the time of its release in 2002 to find the time to sit down and watch City of God. Poor show I know, but I imagine as its world cinema, the non-film students amongst you may not have even heard of it so I thought I'd do a bit of a review, to encourage everyone to watch it.
City of God, or Cidade de Deus, to give it its original title, depicts life in the infamous, real-life slum of the same name, situated in Rio de Janeiro. It charts the growth of gang culture and organised crime in Rio throughout the sixties, seventies and eighties and follows a group of youngsters as they grow apart and try to survive in the dangerous world of the City of God.
The "hoodlums", the aspiring gangsters of the suburbs, have strong morals from the beginning about how to make money and get away from Cidade de Deus and it certainly doesn't involve working. "The Tender Trio", a group of three young boys with inflated egos growing up in the sixties, decide the only way they will ever make it away from the slums is to hold-up a motel. The Trio make their escape. However, having stolen all that money, all 3 of them make themselves many enemies. Two end up dead and the third joins the church. Li'l Dice, a much younger boy who idolises the Trio surpasses their achievements in the slums, killing and stealing before he even hits puberty and changes his name to Li'l Ze.
Fast-forward to the slums in the seventies. Li'l Ze has made a name for himself. His coming of age means no one will touch him in the City of God and he begins taking over small-time drug businesses, hiring his workers and killing without a second thought those who oppose him. Standing in his way is a gang leader called Carrot who blindly refuses to give up his business and his drugs. Several killings and personal vendettas later, the situation in the slums reaches boiling point and becomes a full scale war.
The audience's way in to the violence of the gang warfare comes in the form of Rocket, the honest younger brother of one of the Trio. Desperate to leave the slum and make it as a photographer and with equipment scarce, it isn't until Rocket lands an opportunity with the newspaper covering the violence that his life starts to turn around. Li'l Ze wants his face plastered all over the papers and the reporters equally want to send Rocket in to get what they need, the dangerous environment means that they daren't send journalists or even police into the slums any more.
As the violence escalates, it all comes to a head. Carrot and his closest cohorts end up dead and Li'l Ze loses his business. As it dawns on him that all his power is gone, he is attacked by a group of runts (the name given to the young street rats of the City of God). The film ironically ends with Li'l Ze being shot dead by children as they discuss their plans to make it big and stop anyone who stands in their way.
The first 20 minutes of the film are quite jarring and I found it hard to get into at first. The action flits around all over the place and because we never stay with one character for very long it's difficult to know which is which, not to mention having to concentrate on the subtitles. However, once we find more out about our narrator and protagonist, Rocket, the film takes you on a rollercoaster ride through the chequered history of the City of God as he does everything he can to survive and make it as a journalist. Along the way we meet many different characters and I enjoyed how it felt like an ensemble film more than anything. Though Rocket is always there guiding us through the story's many twists and turns, we are often left in the capable hands of other interesting characters as we hear their stories.
The film felt quite segmented into separate chapters which seems to be deliberate. There are defined sections of the film charting the changes between the sixties and the seventies as well as subheadings on screen denoting specific plot developments which I really enjoyed because it pushed the plot onwards.
The culture and lifestyle represented in the City of God is far removed from every day life and that's what makes it such a riveting watch. We get a sneak peek into the life of people in the slums. What's great is that the film doesn't layer this on as if we should think that it's a terrible lifestyle. It certainly doesn't glorify the actions of the gangs and murderers but it at least offers a lighthearted (at times) look at the events in the City of God.
The script and the cinematography of the film are the two stand-out elements for me. I enjoyed the parallels and symbolism relating to religion as I felt it worked and a very clever, complicated script means we're presented with some very street-wise, smooth-talking kids that make you feel as though the slum is a universe away from anything you're used to. The characters tie together well and the clever ending, with the group of runts effectively inheriting Li'l Ze's reign of violence is a well-presented metaphor for the fact that life goes on. The events portrayed in the film are horrible but the film points out that it's life, it works in cycles in the City of God, and only Rocket seems to realise that there is more to the world.
I'm a firm believer in background reading before and after watching a film, and context in this case did fulfil my enjoyment more. The film is based on actual events and the majority of the cast were real life people of the slums with no acting experience. When I watch it again I'll certainly appreciate the work that each of the actors puts into their roles.
On the whole I was fairly riveted to my screen as I watched City of God. Aside from the few doubtful minutes at the beginning, if you're willing to give it a chance, City of God is an extremely rewarding watch and will leave you pondering the ins-and-outs of Cidade de Deus for hours after the credits roll. 8 out of 10.
