City of God, written by Braulio Mantovani,
based on the novel by Paulo Lins, directed by Fernando Meirelles and Katia Lund
9 out of 10
Notes and
thoughts on other books are available at:
- https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEVa4_CsRStSBBDo4uJWT8BSWtTTn0N1E
and http://realini.blogspot.ro/
Critics and
audiences agree on Cidade de Deus.
The public
has rated this violent, extraordinary film at number 21: http://www.imdb.com/chart/top?ref_=tt_awd
And TIME
magazine has included this motion picture on its All-TIME 100 Movies list:
And City of
God was nominated for four Academy Awards, in the year when Lord of the Rings
took so many prizes.
In my book,
Cidade de Deus is better than the winner of the Oscar for best motion picture
and the director prize for that year.
Having said
that, it must be added that this film is quite difficult to watch in many if
not most of its scenes.
From the
start, I think we are shown how they kill a live chicken on camera and if not
all the blood and death dance, at the very least, the images of the seemingly
still warm body and the plucking of feathers are gruesome.
Veganism is
the way out.
One bird
gets away and a whole band of children mostly runs after the animal, which
escapes miraculously.
“What should have been swift revenge turned
into an all-out war. The City of God was divided. You couldn't go from one
section the other, not even to visit a relative. The cops considered anyone
living in the slum a hoodlum. People got used to living in Vietnam, and more
and more volunteers signed up to die.”
It all
happens in the poor slums of Rio de Janeiro, where rival gangs fight with no
mercy and apparently no mercy.
In one
scene, Li’l Ze, perhaps the cruelest, most despicable of the killers involved,
catches a few children.
True, there
appears to be no lower limit to adhere to a gang or just start with a few
buddies to rob stores.
Li’l Ze is
the leader of most of the City of God, at least for a period, having killed
rivals and leaders of various territories.
When he has
the two kids in front of him, he is asking them to choose- leg or hand, for he
will shoot them where they choose.
And not
just that, after the children, who are no more than six years old, are shot in
the foot, in spite of choosing the hand this Godfather has other ideas.
He picks
one of his upcoming underlings, another child, aged twelve maybe, who wants to
be part of the gang and says to him
-
Now it’s your moment
-
You choose and kill one of them
Being raised
in this extremely violent environment, little boys become killers at a very
tender age and they steal and fight.
“Filé-com-Fritas
- Steak and Fries: A kid? I smoke, I snort. I've killed and robbed. I'm a man.”
And most of the other characters have the same point of view.
Peaceful bystanders
cannot stay of this all out, continuous war, for they get trapped and killed
without any remorse.
In one instance,
Li’l Ze and his band attack a young man and his girlfriend- the narrator
explains that this is the only way the gang leader knows to get close to a girl
and the general attitude is one of sexist, macho chauvinist males.
After he
abuses and rapes the girl, beats the young man, the crazy mobster stops away
from the scene of his crime and thinks- “why didn’t I kill that dude?!”
So he goes
to his house, shouts that he wants the boy out, his brother comes and tries to
reason with the gang of maybe 30 killers.
Unsatisfied,
they kill the brother and start a shooting spree, covering the poor house in a
rain of bullets, killing an uncle too.
The police are
not just corrupt and involved in the drug trade and taking sides according to
the pay off, but itself involved in killings.
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