City of God

Rating

Director

Fernando Meirelles

Screenplay

Braulio Mantovani (Novel: Paulo Lins)

Length

130 min.

Starring

Matheus Nachtergaele, Seu Jorge, Alexandre Rodrigues, Firmino da Hora, Phelip Haagensen, Johnathan Haagensen

MPAA Rating

R (For strong brutal violence, sexuality, drug content and language)

Review

In one of the world’s largest cities, a kid from the slums tries to make his way out alive and make something of his life.

In Fernado Meirelles’ City of God , the greatest power is his ability to make life seem gritty and realistic while maintaining an almost fantastic story. The film is set in the slums of Rio de Janeiro where a young boy nicknamed Rocket (Alexandra Rodrigues) wants to make a success out of his life but finds himself trapped amidst the rampant gang culture in the denizen-nicknamed City of God.

Rocket gets involved with many small time hoods whose brisk drug war keeps him from finding true love while providing a brilliant backdrop for a planned career in photography. His gifted camera captures the realism and horror that he sees around him.

We see his environment through his own eyes and narration as he tries to avoid getting caught in the fray while keeping his grip on reality. There are plenty of classic underworld stereotypes draped across this visual and frenetic canvas. We meet rival crime family heads Benny (Phelipe Haagensen) and L’il Ze (Firmino da Hora) as well as their worthy and not-so-worthy underlings. There’s the non-ethnic drug addict Carrot (Matheus Nachtergaele). And we even meet Knockout Ned (Seu Jorge), a mild-mannered bus driver who, after the death of his father, decides to join the gangs and destroy those who killed him.

Meirelles’ camera work is much like that of its central character. It lingers on scenes of decadence and violence in ways that help the audience understand the tragedy and danger these characters are facing. The editing is quick and tempered and our senses are barraged with images that we won’t easily forget. The screenplay by Braulio Mantovani based on the novel by Paulo Lins shows us the desperate situation that many Brazilians find themselves in every day. It’s an intriguing visualization of a side of Rio that few ever see and even fewer realize is so similar to life in slums in the United States.

City of God is filmed entirely in Portuguese and features many hard-to-watch scenes that open our eyes to the sad state of affairs for these products of their culture. It’s not meant to be a spring picnic in Rio. It’s a rough, credible view of a way of life that can’t possibly get any worse but often succeeds in doing so. The performances do nothing to detract from this view and each actor, despite their age, manages to convey the overwhelming need for these people to escape and find an existence outside of it all where they can live freely and without persecution while knowing that they might never do so.

As we see kids of no more than ten or twelve run through the streets with guns shooting those who don’t give them what they want, we can’t help but pity them. In the end, it’s the lens of young Rocket that captures the explosive and immeasurable loss thrust upon the lives of those around him.

Review Written

March 27, 2004