City of God (Cidade de Deus)

The title comes from a real life slum with the same name in Rio de Janeiro. A city with a social divide of the poor and the rich, crime infests the slums. The film attempts to capture what life is like in the absolute worst of them all, Cidade de Deus (although it is important to note actual filming did not take place there). The film has clearly been embraced by audiences, sitting in the top 20 at IMDb, very high indeed for a foreign language film but it’s easy to see why.

The film follows Rocket, an aspiring photographer and his encounters with crime. Rocket provides us with an omniscient view point but one that is completely objective; odd considering he is integral to the story itself. The film also shows the rise of a young hoodlum Lil Dice who grows up and after a rather odd rite of passage sequence, is renamed Lil Ze. We witness Lil Ze’s obsessive and aimless quest to conquer the slums and Rocket’s struggle to ‘get laid’ and stay away from the lure of crime.

The events in the film do not occur in chronological order instead the film is rather like a stream of consciousness with the narrative jumping about all over the place; the result is dizzying and dazzling and the director Fernando Meirelles unleashes every anti-narrative trick in the book in order to get the audiences attention. The roots here are clear: Quentin Tarantino and Martin Scorsese are the ostensible influences and Meirelles certainly makes his film an experience out of their styles however it’s all a bit pointless because Meirelles fails to channel them effectively.

The stylistics are borrowed very much from America’s own Martin Scorsese. Here, they have been used to glamorise the slums and the violence that occurs. There is no moral centre in the film; with a passive main character that refuses to really comment on the atrocities and the blatant dismissal to show the roots of these problems. Does the film make us want to change things? No it doesn’t, instead we have had what one critic called ‘a holiday in someone else’s misery’ therefore the film exploits the subject matter. This seems more truthful when Fernando Meirelles (a then unknown director) adopts western techniques in order to get noticed in America. Meirelles was in the Oscar run for The Constant Gardner several years later. It seems to me he uses the subject matter and westernises it thus selling out to his country in order to become a leading filmmaker in America.

An analysis of the violence in City of God will show a somewhat irresponsible approach. A film which should be very important and alarming, instead gives us moments like Lil Ze shooting his fellow gang member Tuba because he won’t shut up. The scene is not dwelled upon and it just occurs in an attempt to elicit (dare I say it) a humorous response. This is alarming for two reasons: it is irresponsible of the filmmakers to represent violence this way without any justification whatsoever and it is also a pitiful attempt at humour.

The character of Lil Ze suggests it is the individuals of City of God who have made it a hellhole. Again I am concerned at the filmmakers’ lack of responsibility. It seems to me City of God actually lacks balls and is just as passive as its protagonist. This is further evident considering the film’s lack of emotional engagement and power. The film feels draining and only one powerful moment occurs in the film; the already infamous ‘hand or foot’ scene. It’s a shame that one scene cannot make up for many misplaced scenes.

The film makes no attempt to show us the people of the slums and their motives; take Lil Ze, who is more akin to Tommy De Vito from Goodfellas, he is represented as a homicidal maniac with no social or political motives. The ignorance of important issues concerns me and any documentary about the slums would be more insightful and thought provoking than this.

Despite these flaws City of God remains important because it brings cinematic techniques full circle. Techniques that were originally adopted by Scorsese in his attempt to ‘open up the form’ are now being adopted by other countries. City of God uses micro elements at times expertly. Entire catalogues of shots are used and this is where the Goodfellas comparison comes in because like that film it uses almost every technique in the book but unlike Goodfellas which uses the medium to comment on its protagonists and the story, City of God merely feels like an exercise in stylistics. Meirelles appears technically adept and let me reiterate the fact that City of God does have moments of technical brilliance; intertwining episodic narratives are told with confidence and there are many bravura moments in the editing and camera work but there really is little depth.

Mereilles is quite the magician because he has managed to convince many that City of God is faultless by using the dizzying, frenetic camera work, overwhelming detail and shocking moments that give the audience an emotional reaction e.g. ‘Wow! A Pre Pubescent with a gun killing another pre pubescent! Things are bad here!’ but there is no thought behind it all. It seems we too, for 2 hours anyway, have been lured into City of God’s alluring presentation of life at its worst.

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