Film Review: City of God

The movie City Of God, co-directed by Fernando Meirelles and Katia Lund, is a movie unlike any that I as a film viewer had seen before, and I have seen many films. The film is a harrowing journey through a decade of love, friendship, violence and betrayal that occurs all in the hellish streets of the Brazilian slum in western Rio De Janeiro known as the City Of God. The story of two boys are told through the eyes of one of them, intertwining as they go from being childhood acquaintances to eventually growing into two very different young men.

The main character and narrator, Rocket (played by Alexandre Rodrigues), is a timid and quiet boy who has dreams of becoming a photographer within the City of God. He documents the events that occur within the decade that make City of God a worthwhile view. While Rocket is an important part of the story, he pales in comparison to the films true star, Li'l Ze played magnificently by Leandro da Hora. The film centers around Li'l Ze's rise to power, as a shrimpy little kid growing up in the slums, to the most powerful drug trafficker in the area. What makes the movie so powerful in regards to character is that we follow them as they grow up, from small children looking up to the local hoodlums, into their adolescence as they discover the violent side of life, and finally when they reach their final, separate destinies at the end of the film.

The screenplay, written by Bráulio Mantovani, is one of the best in recent memory. The story is divided up into several "tales", much in the fashion of a Tarentino film, each separated by a very effective freeze frame with the title of the story, which I thought was a very cool element added by the film editors. The intertwining of Rocket and Li'l Ze's life is magical in the movie, as Rocket's life is effected greatly by Li'l Ze's actions, yet Li'l Ze doesn't even know who Rocket is.

The intro itself deserves it's own paragraph of praise, not only for being very unique, but done in such a manner that it brings the film around full circle at the end so the viewer feels content and knowing all that has transpired in the movie which is refreshing in this day in age when movies with plot holes at the end seem to be quite frequent. The opening scene shows and unknown gang chasing a chicken through alleyways, shooting at it recklessly for what seems like no reason at all. It isn't until near the end of the film that this very strange scene is explained and shown to be the most important in the movie.

The range of tonalities and overall use of color in the movie deserves to be mentioned as well, as when Rocket and Li'l Ze are kids, the City of God is shown to be in a barren desert of sorts, using alot of orange's, reds and yellows to show the landscape. As they and the slum develops and gets older, the colors change to be more monochrome, dark, and grey, perhaps showing them transition into another, darker, phase of their life.

I also feel that my favorite scene deserves a mention, as it is in my opinion one of the most fascinating and well done scenes in film ever. It shows, in fast motion, how a few people transform an old woman's house from a nice, warming place to live into what basically equates to a crack den. It is all shown in one take and has a very eerie feel to it as you see all that goes on, violent or otherwise, as the room changes into a drug dealers hideout. It reminded me of a scene from another one of my favorite movies, Requiem for a Dream, which also uses the same kind of time lapse frame to show effectively what takes place in a room over time.

Overall, City of God is perhaps one of the most real and unforgettable masterpieces released so far this century. Showing things for how they really are in drug ridden, hellish slums, it manages to encapsulate all of your senses and truly make you believe that it is not Rocket taking part in these events, but you.