CITY OF GOD

City of God

City of God

City of God is a vivid and frequently violent portrayal of life in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, as seen through the eyes of one of its inhabitants Rocket. Although its genre falls with 'gangster films', unlike its Hollywood counterparts such as Goodfellas, another true life based story, the characters in City of God are driven to be part of a gang, it is their way of life, they inevitably have to be in one and have to carry out grotesquely violent crimes in order to escape poverty.

The actors used in the movie were mainly amateur actors recruited from the slums in Rio de Janeiro, and a couple of them including the main character Rocket (Alexandre Rodrigues) - actually lived in the Cidade de Deus (City of God) itself. The film was not only set in the slums it was filmed there too, not in the City of God itself but in a nearby safer area, which heightens the feeling of realism throughout the whole movie.

From the opening scene the cinematography is used to excellent effect. The style of the film is set and the viewer is immediately given a glimpse into what it is like to live in the slums. The camera continuously cuts from scene to scene - flashes of a knife being sharpened, a chicken being caught, killed, cleaned and cooked, carrots being peeled, a fire, people playing guitar, drums, dancing, drinking etc - along with this there is loud music being played which continues until the chicken escapes, yet then picks up again as a chase begins. The camera follows the children chasing the chicken with frequent cuts to other cameras providing aerial views, close ups, long shots, tracking and panoramic views of the action. This sequence ends with Rocket caught between Lil Ze's gang and the police, a theme that is continued throughout the movie.

The director makes full use of the characters surroundings, for example placing the camera behind inanimate objects such as metal fencing, the fender of a car bonnet, wooden fences, windows, concrete squares etc, to provide multiple view points to help draw the viewer into the film. Here, he also uses clever editing techniques, such as a 360º rotational view around Rocket, to move the story from the present to the past.

Throughout the film there are many different scenes and sub-scenes. Although the main focus of the film is on the slum and Rockets experience of growing up there, it also tells smaller stories about certain people and places that have influenced his life. The director has titled each of these scenes separately by having a 'flash shot', a still, of a specific place or person with the title of that story appearing on screen. Throughout the majority of the film, the camera seems to be in motion and rarely when it is used statically, it is done to emphasise a scene, with stills also being used to introduce specific influential ...