In the opening, jaw-dropping moments of the awe-inspiring
”
City of God,
”
the official Brazillian entry for the Best Foreign Film Oscar, a
smiling youth sharpens his knife against a rock, waiting for the
scent of barbecue to become a meal. Beautiful, bouncy samba music
blares from all over the neighborhood, and a chicken cleverly tries
to avoid the fate of his friends as they are having their feathers
plucked.
In the opening, jaw-dropping moments of the awe-inspiring “City of God,” the official Brazillian entry for the Best Foreign Film Oscar, a smiling youth sharpens his knife against a rock, waiting for the scent of barbecue to become a meal. Beautiful, bouncy samba music blares from all over the neighborhood, and a chicken cleverly tries to avoid the fate of his friends as they are having their feathers plucked.
So, the beginning of “City of God” actually is the end of three decades of history in the most infamous ghetto in Rio that bears the name of the film’s title and houses the notorious drug lords that make up the bulk of the film’s story.
So dangerous a place is this ghetto in Rio that police and military authorities refuse to go there for fear of never returning alive. The residents of “City of God” (Cidade de Deus) are ferocious in their thirst for power, as one boy, perhaps 13, screams at the photographer named Rocket after being asked how kids could be involved in such pursuits: “What do you mean, I’m a kid? I kill. I rob. I’m a man!” The young boy’s sentiments echo most of the characters in this realistic portrayal of those living with little hope of what we consider a normal existence.
Braulio Mantovani beautifully shapes a profound script out of what seems like an unfilmable novel, one that overlaps 350 characters in more 700 pages. Mantovani makes the right choice of focusing on a couple of characters but mostly on the idealistically-minded Rocket, who serves as a photographer working in the slum, to tell the story.
The film tells the history of the City of God slum in Rio from its inception in the 1960s to the end of the 1980s.
In the ’60s, the tenements built by the government for the homeless became the Cidade de Deus. The dwellings are quaint by any stretch of the imagination, and are barely habitable. The bungalows consist of two small rooms with no electricity and express considerable hardship for the folks who call this area home. The ’60s segment of the film tells the beginnings of the story that grows as the decades pass, with young Rocket telling the tale of a group called the Tender Trio, consisting of Goose, Clipper and Shaggy, with help of a deviant named Lil Dice. Not content to make a living off small robberies, these four have visions of running all of Cidade de Deus.
The ’70s decade comes next, as we watch the harrowing conditions worsen in the neighborhood with Lil Dice now running the town as its most nefarious drug lord. Dice has renamed himself Lil Ze and prides himself on his violent nature, his ability to kill off his competitors with impunity. He also tries to keep a good reputation among the peaceful citizens of Cidade de Deus by protecting their shops from being robbed.
By the time the ’80s arrive, gangs are all over the ghetto with rival factions warring all over trying to achieve some power. The Runts are perhaps the most harrowing group of all, with their disheveled, fearless mob of heavily-armed 7- to 10-year-olds as their base and blood rage in their hearts.
“City of God” is an ode to the classic natural cinema of the Italian Neorealists, preferring to use non-professional, actual inhabitants of the Cidade de Deus neighborhood as the performers in this amazingly realistic cinema verite. Ultimately, the ghetto in “City of God” is meant to represent all those who live on the without society’s comforts – the forgotten people, so to speak. It gives those who usually don’t have a voice to give their version of the world, unglamorous and ugly, for all to behold.
CITY OF GOD (“Cidade de Deus”). Directed by Fernando Meirelle. Screenplay by Braulio Mantovani, adapted from the novel by Paul Lins. Rated R (extreme violence and gunplay), 140 minutes. In Portuguese with English subtitles. Now playing in Bay Area theaters.
