City of God
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Movie Reviews of City of God
Movie Review: Mighty "City"
Summary: 5 Stars
"City of God" is one of the most striking films in a long time, a magnificent, vibrant look at the slums and drug dens of Brazil, and the people who live there over the course of decades. While the camerawork can be kind of offputting, it's still an enthralling punch to the gut.Cidade de Deus (City of God) is a 1960s Rio de Janeiro favela where the poor live so they won't dirty up the rest of the city. It's a rough place at best, and a horrible place at worst. And as children grow up, they're inexorably sucked into the cycle of drugs, theft, violence and starvation that is the lifeblood of the "City of God."
These are shown to us through three boys: Rocket (Alexandre Rodrigues), Li'l Z (Leandro Firmino) and Bene (Phellipe Haagensen). Li'l Z and Bene take the path to being criminals. Rocket, the narrator, dreams of turning his artistic bent into a job as a photographer. But in the slums of Rio de Janeiro, it's hard enough to pursue your dreams -- and even harder to avoid the violence around you.
It's almost impossible to watch "City of God" without feeling vaguely dazed. It basically lets us into the lives of a group of people who are being rapidly drawn downward, in a world where everybody is a criminal -- including preteen children. Just looking at it isn't enough -- the director lets us see it through innocent eyes, making what happens all the more shocking.
Fernando Meirelles does an outstanding job with the direction. It's dark, it's fast, it's a quick left to the jaw. He doesn't milk this for cheap sympathy, or sugarcoat it to make it easier to watch -- the scene where a sobbing young boy is cold-bloodedly shot by one of his peers is more horrifying than any fright flick. The one area where "City of God" stumbles is the camerawork and editing. At times it's a bit too MTV, with the shakycam.
Despite the fact that virtually nobody in this movie is a pro actor, the acting is very, very good. Rocket is the only truly innocent person in the whole movie, and Alexandre Rodrigues does a wonderful job with the little guy who dares to dream of a better life. Leandro Firmino is equally good as the drug lord who blithely sells his dark soul.
The vision of Rio de Janeiro's poorest districts is not just sobering, but often shocking to the relatively well-off American viewers. Bloody, dark and compelling, "City of God" is a masterpiece.
Movie Review: Gripping tale of a kid stuck in Rio's Ghetto
Summary: 5 Stars
"A kid? I smoke, I snort. I've killed and robbed. I'm a man."
Sometimes a movie comes along that is so unexpected and fresh that it takes a little while after viewing to realize what you've just watched. "City of God" is one of those movies. It will leave you with a feeling of utter satisfaction.
Based on a true story, "City of God" takes a look at the life of Buscapé aka Rocket, a kid from the slums as he attempts to survive. The journey covers two decades and depicts the true way of life in the ghettos of Rio de Janeiro. In the first half of the film we see Rocket grow up dealing with things no child should ever deal with. They really cover everything: drugs, violence, politics sex. Throughout all this Rocket retains his passion for photography. His dream and inevitable ticket out. Eventually he decides to begin snapping shots of the local gang activity. The local paper gets their hands on his photo's and so begins the second act of this film. Rocket works to get the "next big shot".
This is a violent movie but it is not overly so. It works with the atmosphere of the film and I found it a necessary aspect. Scriptwriter Bràulio Mantovani did a great job interpreting the book by Paulo Lins bringing a haunting reality to the characters. We not only hated some of the characters but also felt a very strong connection to them. A task not easily accomplished. Rocket, wonderfully played by Alexandre Rodriguez fights to keep out of the draw of drugs and crime. In fact, all of the actors did a great job. I was amazed how well they portrayed the inner battle between good and evil.
One of the best aspects of the film is in the photography. Cinematographer César Charlone and Director Fernando Meirelles did a great job with the colors., it reminded me a lot of "Traffic" directed by Steven Soderbergh. They were dull but it worked magnificently contrasted with the vibrant soundtrack and the frantic editing. "City of God" goes full circle in the life of the gangsters, a feature I really enjoyed. I wasn't left with questions, something not found in a lot of current cinema.
All in all this is a masterpiece of film making. The characters, scenery, storyline, script, editing, direction and acting are all superb. It is yet another shining example of how foreign movies are some of the best in the business.
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Movie Review: Realistic. Needs to be seen.
Summary: 5 Stars
I don't normally gush about movies such as this. I'm simply not a fan of ultra-violence. "City of Dreams," however, deserves the accolades and the attention.
It's odd that some critics blast this film for being too much like MTV, for being "unrealistic." Knowing many Brazilians, and having visited the country myself, I can safely say that "City" is closer to reality than many people would like to know. Even the current leader of Brazil has praised the movie. If you know someone who's lived in Brazil ask them about it or about the life of the impovershed in Sao Paulo or Rio. The added information will make the impact - the realism - of this film that much greater.
The camera angles and editing are manic at times. It matches the mood of the film. Guns, violence, panic, passion, life and death. The story is not told in a straight line. Think Memento crossed with The English Patient with the storyline of Goodfellas and The Gangs of New York. For good measure add in a heavy dose of reality. The film depicts, at least in part, a true story and is (more importantly) quite factual in its overall depiction of the reality of gang and drug violence in Brazil. True, the pace of the movie is unrealistic, but what it actually shows us is not.
On the DVD there's an added bonus of a documentary that looks at the entire hopelessness of the situation. Brutal gangsters, corrupt cops, violence, and a society that uses the whole sordid mess to control a huge impoverished populaton with no options. A senior member of the police with decades of experiences admits to all of this - states quite bluntly that the state must use this form of represssion in order to prevent chaos. He also points his finger at US and Swiss gun makers who send their weapons to Brazil to be used by the gangs. He points out that the US can send troops to Colombia to shut down the source of the drug trade in the US - why can't he come to the US and shut down Colt which sends AR-15s to Brazil? It's a legitimate point, one that will likely make some (especially US citizens) uncomfortable. While Brazilians are mostly to blame for their plight, it doesn't help that multinational corporations profit and manipulate the situation. They are part of the problem.
This is a movie that must be seen. It will alter your view of the world.
Movie Review: Brutally Astounding
Summary: 5 Stars
I stumbled across "City of God" when I turned on the TV to play a DVD. As I was getting ready to put the DVD in, I noticed that there was a movie that was just starting. As I watched the first few minutes I became immersed in this Brazilian movie of life in a slum in Rio. I sat mesmerized as this story of a youth trying to grow up despite all of the violence around him. This is a very brutal and profane movie but these extremes have their place in "City of God". Anything less would have diluted the impact of the film. "City of God" is a movie with many subplots, iterlocking stories and shifts in time. The film even had titles for the different stories within a story. The many characters that come and go are well-presented in their own unique way. There are some we come to know as evil incarnate but most of the various characters become strangely endearing. The main focus of "City of God" is a boy called Rocket who does his best to survive in his toxic surroundings. His opposite is Lil' Dice who learns to enjoy murder before the age of puberty. There is a plot but the impact of the movie is how the many stories and people bring us a real sense of a life we would never want to experience in person but fascinates us too much to turn away from on film. The violence is numbing and what makes it even more so is how so many of those directly involved are children. Indeed, there seems to be a near-total absence of parents. It's probably no coincidence that Rocket's father seems to be the one lone authoritative parent but we only see that in one brief scene. Of all the frightening scenes of violence in the movie, the most disturbing for me (and, I suspect, many others) was the final scene. Listening to the pre-teens talk amongst themselves in that closing sequence defines the problem that the rest of the movie put on display. The sad thing is that we wouldn't have believed in that scene if we hadn't seen the previous 130 minutes.
The acting in "City of God" is outstanding which is all the more impressive because of how many young people have significant roles in the movie. The directing was tremendous and this is one of those rare movies when you realize the value of a good film editor. "City of God" reminded me of "Boyz in the Hood" but on a more unsettling level. This is like Martin Scorsese with a better articulated message.
Movie Review: A Modern Classic about Gangs in the Ghetto of Rio
Summary: 5 Stars
The City of God is the ghetto just out of sight of the fashionable tourist-attraction portions of Rio de Janeiro. The children who play on the streets there dream about bettering their lives, and the lives of their own families - much as Americans are nudged towards "The American Dream". But in the City of God the children have never had a hot shower, and their aspirations are only to join the gang most likely to come out on top of the gang wars that run end to end.City of God is a powerful movie with incredibly vivid performances by a cast we are told are almost all non-professional actual residents of the real Cidade de Deus. The narrative is endlessly fascinating and many scenes interlock with scenes that occur in other places. As a viewer I had a repeated sense of deja vu (calculated by the brilliant director Fernando Meirelles), similar to the sensation I felt watching another brilliant film: Christopher Nolan's "Memento". Scenes are played out in their entirety with a particular character featured, then we will revisit the same narrative moment with the camera focused on an entirely different character, and we are allowed to see, if not into the minds of the characters, at least the circumstances that lead up to how they behave in a certain situation. As innovative as those technically brilliant shots were in "The Matrix" - you know the ones I mean, the ones where several characters, and often bullets and other quickly moving objects, were slowly rotated in the perspective of a camera that enjoys the privilege of computer-generated freeze-frame. The City of God does the equivalent of that mind-blowing technique, except it is done with the story. The payoff of this technique is that we become more emotionally invested in the characters - and where many mainstream viewers would NOT identify with a murdering drug-dealer, we are led gradually into that world. We meet "Li'l Dice" as a young man with a broad smile full of teeth and we could imagine him right down the street in our own neighborhood, hanging out on our street corner. As The City of God progresses we see how this pre-adolescent grows into the most feared man in the worst neighborhoods we could imagine.
The film is visually arresting, emotionally involving and psychologically stunning. Comparisons with Scorsese and Coppola are valid. This is a virtuoso effort.