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City of God
(Cidade de Deus)
****
Cinema
Reviews - Week of January 10, 2003
Rated on a 4-star scale. Certificate 18. Brazil.
130 minutes. Directed by Fernando Meirelles. Written by Braulio Mantovani;
from the novel by Paulo Lins. Starring Alexandre Rodrigues, Leandro Firmino
da Hora, Seu Jorge, Phelipe Haagensen, Matheus Nachtergaele, Renato de Souza,
Douglas Silva, Cero Camilo, Graziela Moretto, Roberta
Rodriguez.
The papers and the plot synopses will tell you
that "City of God" is the story of Brazilian slum children
involved in a desperate world of drugs, violence and dangerous decay. The
quotes on Rotten Tomatoes are so far going on about the amazing job it does
of painting a picture of tragedy and despair. You might get the impression,
like I did, that the movie is bound to be a worthy and admirable but nonetheless
solemn and grim depiction of poverty in some piteous far away
place.
Oh, but that's so wrong. Describing the movie
in its bare bones does not do justice to the experience. This is a work of
life: a brilliant gangster saga, an absorbing view of a culture, a truthful
capturing of the way you see your neighbourhood and your buddies change for
better and worse through teenage years, and a stylistic achievement that
refuses to release its grip. One of the most remarkable things that the arts
can do is to take alien worlds -- unknown to us by experience, shown only
sketchily by the media -- and not only communicate them to us, but tangibly
and forcefully relate them to things we all go through.
Directed by Fernando Meirelles, the movie takes
place in Cidade de Deus, a housing project near Rio de Janeiro full of those
shacks known in Brazil as 'favelas'. The story shows how the children of
the area grow up to take over small-time crime rackets and synthesise them
into madness. Over the years, things escalate into free-for-all gang warfare,
and then come crashing down, as a new generation gets ready to take over.
The new kids are simply acting their role in a cycle bound to get ever more
vicious; they're crueller than those who went before them because they grew
up reacting to their example, and no doubt the next batch of disciples will
follow suit and evolve to further levels of callousness.
The film is narrated by Rocket (Alexandre Rodrigues),
an insecure kid who manages to stay out of the trouble all around him and
one day wants to be a photographer. He is a blank observer, free to guide
us through the paths and histories of other characters, often explaining
events at which he was not present but have presumably become local
legend.
From childhood in the 1960s to teens and short-lived
adulthood in the 70s and early 80s, we follow people like Benny (Philippe
Haagensen), who gets into gangster-style drug dealing but eventually embraces
the hippie ethic and wants to get out; Anjelica (Alice Braga), the girl Rocket
adores but who ends up finding love somewhere else; and Knockout Ned (Seu
Jorge), a good man who gets embroiled in rising tides of violence after finding
himself in a quest for revenge. Impossible to avoid is L'il Ze (Leandro Firmino
da Hora), whose bright, sharp teeth and eyes illuminate evil glints. He's
no-good and overly ambitious as an eight-year old, and eventually ends up
ruling his neighbourhood with an idea of good business sense that involves
random murder and a lot of piercing cackling.
I could attempt to list more characters, or describe
those above in more detail, but what would be the point? This is a film about
life. Its effect is not easily summarised in a movie review; it has to be
experienced. Based on true stories, the source material was a 700-page novel
by Paulo Lins. What Meirelles, co-director Katia Lund and screenwriter Braulio
Mantovani have done is to take all the depth and detail of a long text and
reinterpret it visually. Shooting with grainy, high-contrast, garishly colourful
film, they capture the times they depict and the harshness of the atmosphere,
while remaining attractively cinematic. They swirl into asides of narrated
montages, where Rocket explains the histories behind certain characters and
situations, and fills in just enough gaps to let us know what chains of events
led people to where we see them, and what feelings came into play. The camera
does everything from staying elegantly still to floating handheld as if being
a witness to violence, to lunging reactively, to swirling about in panic.
It's never amateurishly jerky; it confidently articulates and expresses the
danger zone.
"City of God" has drawn comparisons with "GoodFellas",
and yes, there is evidence of similar stylistic flourishes. But this is not
a movie like "Blow", which just ripped off the surface and rhythm of Scorsese
by imitating his use of Steadicam, his obvious epic sweep, his retro rock
n roll sountrack. Meirelles is more interested in capturing a feeling of
breathless storytelling, to relate a violent time and place and make it seem
told from the inside. His film is heartbreaking and savage without being
affectedly artsy or lingering; he doesn't look down on his characters with
weepy condolences, but instead employs sound and visuals that have a knack
for conveying senses of humour, rhythms of days and the auras and values
of people. I found myself relating to the material, not because I have ever
had the misfortune to be close to a cold-blooded psychopath like L'il Ze,
but because of the way the paths of different lives are seen. Most of us
have witnessed certain circles from our youth drift into areas that are desperate
or even violent, and we can recognise the outlines.
What we are left with is a film carrying all the
passion and weight of any arthouse flick, and the immediate impact of a good
ol' down to earth Movie. Critics often complain about how attention spans
of unsophisticated viewers are always dropping, and how studio product encourages
the trend, and we are correct to do so. Still, a film like "City of God"
is to be praised for grabbing us with its vitality. It's not fast and furious
for the sake of it. It communicates deeply and thrillingly.
COPYRIGHT©
2003 Ian Waldron-Mantgani
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