Film Reviews: City of God

City of God

2002

Director: Fernando Meirelles

Screenplay: Braulio Mantovani

When I think back to my youth, I can remember times of playing youth baseball and playing touch football in the yard.  Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think of how I would eat the next day if I did not sell enough drugs.  Nor did I ever have to worry about my best friend committing murders to remain a top of the street gang. In the case Fernando Meirelles “City of God,” the realities of the young Brazilians are just that.  Based in the slums of Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, “City of God” follows the lives of the youth living in the dangerous streets and what each plans to make for their lives.

The narrator of the film is Rocket, a young boy who has an eye for photography. The story follows several other characters, all of course under the age of twenty, mostly because no one in the City of God makes it to the age of twenty.  These are the harsh realities we as an audience come to face while watching the film.  Rocket is very careful with every step he takes, making sure he avoids the big time gang and drug leaders.  Perhaps the most interesting character is Li’l Zee, who from the young age of six years old wanted to be the face and leader of the City of God.  Li’l Zee uses all methods possible, including that of murder and rape to get all the way to the top.  Throughout the film, which begins in the present of the film but is very flashback heavy, we see the transformation of Rocket and Li’l Zee.  The film almost has a GoodFellas feel to it, seeing where the characters are and then rewinding backwards to tell their story.

This film, which I would consider one of the greatest films ever made, delivers such a profound message that you cannot help but be moved by the circumstances that these young people live under.  The images of The City God, which were actually shot right outside Rio De Janeiro, have a lasting image on the mind.  The scared look on the young children’s faces as Li’l Zee forces murder, the disregard for human life, the use of marijuana and cocaine, and the instant when hopes and dreams are torn away from you by the use of a gun, is what makes this movie so deep.  Just when you think we find a hero, the slums take control of the hero’s life.  Just then when you think you have made it out of gang, you are forced back in. And when just when you thought you would be the one who makes it out of The City of God, you’re dead.

4/4