«The City of God» - that is how they call the poor slums of Rio de Janeiro, it is a place where poverty coexist with the highest amount of crime - local kids get guns after they learn how to walk. Since the favelas were built to isolate the city center from the poor neighborhoods, the law eventually eft this place and the local gangs began to rule the streets. The narrator of the story, a guy named Rocket (Alexandre Rodrigues) tells about three generations of gangs, which lived in the favela.
The film starts with a beautifully shot sequence - one of the gangs is having a picnic, but a chicken escapes. Some people start chasing it, and among them there is Rocket, who finds himself between the gangs and the police. He understands that there is a high possibility that he will be murdered at this moment - there are a bunch of armed police officers on the one side, and violent gangsters on the other one. Rocket has every right to be scared for his life, because of a potential bloodbath on the streets.
The narrator says that in order for us to get his story and understand what is lying underneath, he has to go back and start from the very beginning. Then the director Fernando Meirelles uses a flashback to transform Rocket into a small boy, who is playing soccer. The film is visual and innovative, the colors change and there is a contrast between dark slums and dusty soccer field.
The films is about this Brazilian slum, the favela, and it tracks the Rocket’s story starting from the late sixties and to the eighties. The story is based on contrast between two childhood friends - Rocket and Li’l Dice, who later renames himself as Li’l Ze. These kids reflect two sides of ghetto - Rocket wants to become someone else, he tries to escape the violence and don’t want to kill people, while Li’l Ze can murder someone in cold blood, just for the sake of establishing his authority, and that what makes him so different from Rocket, who still has some morality left.
Fernando Meirelles used to work as a TV commercials director, so he learned how to work quickly - he shots a sequence and then he moves on (Elbert). His previous experience influenced him as a movie director and created his unique style and sense of reality. The use of the whirling camera and quick cuts makes the film look vivid, they audience can feel tension and danger of the violent streets.
Together with the cinematographer Cesar Charlone, Meirelles creates a believable atmosphere using hand-held camera to make sure he shows every needed detail of the story. The film is longer than two hours and there it shows a lot of violent and dark scenes, however it doesn’t have any unnecessary romantic parts and still looks dynamic. The City of God and people, who live there look like a big and rather dysfunctional family, where parents don’t have time and desire to take care of their naughty children (Bradshaw).
Meirelles insisted on directing «The City of God» using the regular citizens of the place and unknown actors. For example, the actors who played the main characters - Rocket and Li’L Ze (Leandro Firmino da Hora) both grew up in the favela, and Leandro didn’t even want to become an actor - he got to the audition with his friends and got the part (Elbert). He was just a kid from the ghetto, who managed to become a part of something bigger than the street.
The actors didn’t have to pretend, they knew what is was like to live in such conditions, surrounded by crime, when violence create more violence, and after one crazy gangster leader is killed, another one will take his place, and he will be even crazier - because that is how the favela works. It doesn’t have any mercy - eventually everybody gets what they deserve.
Meirelles was right to have all the sacrifices to direct this movie - he made it realistic and exciting, the story seems so believable that it could easily be a documentary. Meirelles showed a story of a simple boy, who was not going to become a gangster, but a rotten favela takes him deeper and deeper, so he can’t resist it anymore. «The City of God» is not an action movie, it wasn’t created for the sake of entertaining the audience with great fights and a lot of blood. It is a criminal drama without a glamorous main character, like in Martin Scorsese’s «GoodFellas», this movie doesn’t look like Guy Ritchie’s works, where criminals tend to take everything that is going on with a sarcastic attitude, and the gangsters don’t look like Vince and Jules from «Pulp Fiction» with their conversations about quarter pounder cheeseburgers.
«The City of God» is based on a famous novel, written by Paulo Lins, who has lived in the favela himself, but somehow managed to escape it and become a journalist. The film differs from the novel, there is no one main character, as it was in the book, Rocket seems to be more like an observer - he quickly changes stories and interrupts himself. He tells his story with a lot of emotions, but without manipulating the audience. Rocket doesn’t judge and the director Meirelles shows the story without unnecessary pathos.
When Rocket find a camera, he starts taking pictures and realizes that it the only thing he wants to continue doing. He is not interested in gangs violence, robbery and selling drugs - Rocket wants to be a real photographer and that changes his life completely, because now he has purpose. Being one of the kids from the streets, Rocket is able to take pictures there without being killed. He finds a real job at the newspaper and gets his portrait of one of the gangsters published on the front page.
Rocket thinks this is the end of his life, because the gangsters will haunt him and kill him for exposing their pictures, but he forgets that all the vicious crime lords and leaders are a bunch of kids. They love publicity, attention and want to be in the spotlight, so they don’t mind posing for Rocket, showing off with their beautiful girls and big guns. The difference between Rocket and other gangster kids is in his motives and beliefs - he actually wants to achieve something and such purpose changes the person’s perception of life, suddenly Rocket is able to see everything clearer and doesn’t want to end up like all of his childhood friends.
The film is violent and sometimes hard to watch because of the amount of blood, but it appeals to the audience - it is not one of the boring and depressing films, that teach morality, it tells the story in the honest and relentless way. Such films are not created for the sake of entertainment, they are supposed to show that some things people have been considered normal, may be luxury in other places - for example having safe streets without any guns, free education, well-equipped hospitals and educated doctors, food on the table, the possibility for the kids and adults to walk or play on the street without any fear for life should not be taken for granted (Holden).
Meirelles’s film shows youth violence - the gangers are no older than twenty five, the kids run on the streets with the guns and their motto here is kill or be killed. The parents, who can’t make end meet work all day long, while their kids want something more other than freedom and sun - they need money, food and entertainment. Little kids start with petty theft and burglary, while the older kids find drugs - something that would be able to bring them a lot of money and danger at the same time. They are young and reckless, they have guns and there is cocaine in their blood system - now they rule the streets and with every time they create even more violence.
The genius of Fernando Meirelles is not in a novel adaptation, most directors could do that. His mastery is in engaging with the people from a real ghetto and showing their stories without any cover-ups or lies. The director wasn’t afraid to infiltrate the territory, get real people to be a part of the movie and let them show a hurtful reality of Rio de Janeiro’s poor neighborhoods, which has been so secluded from the city center for such a long time, that it looks like another country has been created - with its own rules, leaders and wars.
People, who live outside Brazil don’t know something more about this country, rather than ordinary stereotypes of white beaches and Brazilian carnival, with thousands of people having a good time, dancing and forgetting about their troubles. But the reality is much more scarier than this and Fernando Meirelles was brave enough to become a person, who showed the whole world the truth and made people actually think about what is going on.
The film received four Oscar nominations and was praised by most of the critics. However, the purpose of the movie wasn’t in getting a critical appraise, its goal was to push people to make changes in their lives and don’t let angry teenagers form gangs that eventually destroy the city and the citizens.
«The City of God» is more than just a movie about the crimes on the streets of the favela, it is more of a cinematic adrenaline that shares the emotions of greed, barbaric violence, non-stopping anger that lead to decades of ruthless and catastrophic war between the gangs and the police (Pierce). The film is shocking and thrilling at the same time with its grotesque and powerful characters, who are just kids, who are trapped in the circle of violence. Those, who try to fight evil on the street, unintentionally create even more evil, after their enemies show them what a real vengeance looks like.
Meirelles took dozens of children out of the streets not only to act in the movie, but to help with the script as well (Kennedy). Who could possibly know better what the actors should say in their dialogues? Only the active participants, who watch the blood running in the streets almost all the time. The brilliance of acting lies within the essence of actors’ daily life - they are used to violence, so their emotions are so real.
«City of God» created a sensation not only in Brazil, but in the world. The visual representation of the movie, its adrenaline which can be felt in every shot, makes the audience feel like they have come to a kid’s birthday, that went completely out of control (Holden). This film is not afraid to show the worst parts of Brazilian society, because it wants to impact the situation, not only talk about it. Meirelles doesn’t offer solutions in his story or teach how things should look like, he is not the only to be doing it. His job was to open other people’s eyes and make them look at the truth, even if it may be unpleasant or hurtful - everyone should know it.
Works Cited
Bradshaw, Peter. "Review: City of God | Film | The Guardian." The Guardian. N.p., 3 Jan. 2003. Web. 25 Apr. 2016.
Elbert, Roger. "City of God Movie Review & Film Summary (2003) | Roger Ebert." Movie Reviews and Ratings by Film Critic Roger Ebert | Roger Ebert. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Apr. 2016.
Holden, Stephen. "Boys Soldiering in an Army of Crime." The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. N.p., 17 Jan. 2003. Web. 25 Apr. 2016.
Kennedy, Colin. "City Of God Review | Movie." Empire. N.p., 3 Jan. 2003. Web. 25 Apr. 2016.
Pierce, Nev. "BBC - Films - Review - City of God (Cidade De Deus)." BBC - Home. N.p., 2 Dec. 2002. Web. 25 Apr. 2016.
