City of God Movie Review

City of God (Cidade de Deus) is a film based on real-life accounts, located in the Brazilian slum called The City of God of Paulo Lins. It depicts the growth of the crime in this Rio de Janeiro's suburb, between the end of the 60's and the beginning of the 80's. It has been described by some as the Brazilian Goodfellas. Even though City of God might be set in the outskirts of Rio it has universal echoes. The film is an assured meditation on the inevitability of violence in a ghetto where people are almost entirely without hope. Fortunately the killings, and their underlying social discontent, are lightened with dark humour and engaging performances.

The performances are astonishing as they are authentic, understandably, as the child actors were recruited from the favela streets in which the film is set, avoiding the gloss of stage school. Meirelles and co-director Katia Lund worked for eight months prior to shooting, creating the various episodes through a series of improvisational workshops. The results are incredible – one harrowing, brilliantly acted scene in particular involves a rising group of vicious child gangsters, who give one of their even younger victims the choice of being shot “in the hand or in the foot” in one of the most disturbing scenes in recent years that Hollywood or Europe would shy away from. We’re really not used to seeing children wielding guns as brutal killers and this film really hammers that home.

Different actors play the main characters, as children and as young adults. Douglas Silva is arresting as the child villain Little Dice, whose cold-eyed acceptance of murder as a tool of self-progression is utterly convincing. Leandro Firmino de Hora also excels in the same character's adult role, with a performance that is spine-chillingly real in its lust for power and disregard for human life.

The film also excels in technical areas. Cesar Charlone's grainy, sun-drenched camerawork is reminiscent of 'Traffic', while Daniel Rezende's stunning, hyper-kinetic editing only occasionally distracts from the film's flow. We see a speeded-up history of an apartment that’s used as a drug base, or a violent confrontation that explodes under the strobe-effects of a nightclub and really artistic freeze frame shots as the characters are introduced.

Allowances have been made for dramatic licence as many of the characters have been condensed from the 400 or so characters in the book. At the end of the film, we’re shown documentary footage of an event we have previously seen dramatised, which serves to emphasise that the events of the film actually took place.

City of God is already a contender for the best film of 2003 from Future Movies and Fernando Meirelles & Katia Lund are names that you will definitely hear again.

DVD Extras:
'News From A Private War':
A full documentary about life in the slums comes as a refreshing surprise complementing the film really well. I wish the DVD included more like a behind the scenes or an interview with the directors.

What others had to say...
“Shocking, frightening, thrilling and funny, City of God has the substance to match its lashings of style. Cinema doesn't get more exhilarating than this.” -- Nev Pierce www.bbc.co.uk/films

"Heartbreaking and savage without being affectedly artsy or lingering. It employs sound and visuals that have a knack for conveying senses of humour, rhythms of days and the auras and values of people." -- Ian Waldron-Mantgani, www.ukcritic.com

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