Cidade de Deus [City of God] (2002)

Since the last film I reviewed was by Fernando Meirelles, I thought I would include my review of his earlier film, City of God. It was actually the first film review I ever had published on a now-defunct, I think, web site called, Biggerboat.net. I don't think it's too bad but I also hope I've shown some improvement.

City of God is a collection of interwoven stories based on a semi-autobiographical novel by Paolo Lins that is set in a favela (slum) of Rio de Janeiro, known as the “City of God.” The biggest box office hit in Brazil’s history (and the country’s official submission for Best Foreign Language Film in this year’s Academy Awards), City of God portrays the gang life in a poverty-stricken favela so well, the Brazilian police actually arrested a notorious drug lord in the lobby of a theater waiting to see the film’s sneak preview.

The story begins in the 1960s, when the government relocated the city’s poor and homeless to what an area that resembled a refugee camp, in order not to spoil the city’s “postcard image.” The police rarely ventured into its streets and as a result, the so-called City of God became a breeding ground for drugs and crime, ruled by gangs of children wielding guns that are all too readily available.

Through the sprawl of its many storylines, the film centers on two main characters who each follow vastly divergent paths. The first is a boy named Li’l Dice, who hangs out with a gang of older boys called the Tender Trio. “We have to find a way out of here,” the eleven year old tells them, and he devises a plan to rob a local motel (which also functions as a brothel for rich men from other parts of the city). Because he is the youngest, the Tender Trio make him wait outside the door to look out for the police while they rob the motel’s patrons. Unhappy with his role in the heist, Li’l Dice sounds a false alarm, clearing the Tender Trio out of the motel so that he can perform a brutal act that marks the beginning of a bloody career that will make him the most powerful gang lord in the City of God.

The second character, Rocket, who also serves as the film’s narrator, is too afraid of dying to get involved in the gang culture. His older brother, a member of the Tender Trio, tells him that he has the brains of the family and, making him swear never to touch his gun, encourages him to find his legitimate way out of the favela. Rocket finds a way out when he sees a photojournalist taking pictures of the body of the Tender Trio’s leader, who had been shot to death by the police as he tried to escape the City of God. Fascinated by the camera, Rocket aspires to become a professional photographer — though it will take him another decade before his newfound ambition can provide an escape.

The anarchy and untamed violence portrayed on the streets of the favela are reminiscent of the chaos that drove last year’s Blackhawk Down. But, unlike that pro-America war microcosm, City of God gives faces to the members of the angry mobs with guns—and it manages to do so without sentimentalizing them with trite explanations for their actions. Though the film condemns society for allowing places like the City of God to exist, it never excuses the characters’ behavior.

Director Fernando Meirelles has received some criticism for employing nearly 200 nonprofessional actors from the streets of Brazil and for glorifying violence with highly stylized action sequences. These criticisms fail to look at the big picture; though Meirelles portrays life as cheap to many of the hoods, he also highlights the anguish their actions cause to innocent bystanders. Meirelles shows both Li’l Ze’s brutal murder of a man trying to protect his brother and his mother’s grief stricken reaction.

Unfortunately, the Academy snubbed City of God from this year’s Oscars. Y Tu Mama Tambien, which earned more in the box office than any other foreign film, also got snubbed from the Best Foreign Film category, but made it for Best Original Screenplay.

Though praised by Brazil’s newly elected Leftist president, Ignacio “Lula” da Silva, as necessary viewing for anyone who truly wants to understand Brazil, its portrayal of Li’l Ze’s unrestrained ambition to dominate his business can just as easily be interpreted as a critique of corporate America. Exhibiting an extraordinary talent for storytelling, Meirelles succeeds in revealing a side of Brazil (and by extension, the world itself) that many would have preferred to sweep under the rug. In a society that idealizes brutality without remorse, violence only breeds more violence and Meirelles’s city streets mete out their own brand of justice for those who take up the gun.