Area 77

City of God is a Brazilian movie directed by Fernando Meirelles and written by Braulio Mantovani. Based on a true story, this movie was an adaptation from a novel by Paulo Lins with the same title. The main characters were “Rocket,” played by Alexandre Rodrigues, “Li’l Ze” was played by Leandro Firmino, “Benny” by Phellipe Haagensen, and Douglas Silva as “Li’l Dice.”

Almost all actors in the movie, major or minor, have little or no experience at all. To provide the movie with authentic acting and displays of action and drama, many of the actors were actually from the infamous town the movie was based on. The intended audiences were fans of the novel, which chronicled the author’s life in Cidade de Deus, a shantytown or ‘favela’ in the Brazilian cit of Rio de Janeiro.

The story spans three decades starting in the 1960s and ending in the 80s. The plot of the movie revolves around Rocket’s narration of how he grew up in Cidade de Deus to be come the man he became at the end. It starts off with Rocket and Li’l Ze as young boys living in the shadows of the current drug lords and hoodlums of the town. Rocket being the younger brother of a drug lord, and Li’l Ze being the look-out incase the cops showed up during holdups. When the 70s roll in, Rocket is still at school while Li’l Ze grew up to be the most respected hood in Cidade de Deus. He then killed off all the drug lords in town and became the “boss,” the sole leader of all drug businesses in the city. Rocket, however, became a photographer for the newspapers.

The main theme of the movie is the cycle children go through to become brutal killers for the sake of their bosses, and the chance to move up the ladder of success. With the help of current leaders, these boys are groomed and taught the ways of the streets. This phenomenon is portrayed well in the movie since both sides of the track are shown for the purpose of comparisons. Two boys living in the same town grow up in the slums. One becomes a notorious drug lord and the other an aspiring photojournalist. His first journalistic break is being the inside photographer of Li’l Ze’s gang as they are at war with the rival drug lord and his gang.

Crime and drama would be the classified genre this movie would be under due to the extreme violence and brutality. This movie has been fairly liked by many (voted #18 in the top 250 best movies in IMDb.com), however I feel the director and the writer missed some important factors. Throughout the movie, the characters are very much 2-dimensional. A lot of focus is on the actions of those characters and not on their personalities. This ultimately results in the lack of sympathy from the audience as most characters fall to their demise.

An excellent performance was delivered by the actors who truly showed audiences the way it is. This is due to the fact that many actually came from the real Cidade de Deus. Filming also took place in the slum to further increase the authenticity of the movie. That authenticity is exposed very well in the cinematography, acting, and the direction. A very raw style of filming was used, in which the cameras were operated by hands and not stands that would keep it steady. Movements of the camera paralleled the actions and emotions of the scenes. When there was an intense violent scene, then the camera was a bit shaky, and when there was a sex scene, the camera was moving in a fluid motion and zoomed in on the action as to not show the whole picture; to leave room for the audience’s imagination, and to intensify their excitement and curiosity.

After you watch the movie, read the interesting movie trivia. Some of them, you won’t believe.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 5th, 2008 at 7:35 pm and is filed under TV/Movies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.