In the slums of Rio de Janeiro, a knife is sharpened and a chicken is slaughtered, its neck cut with determined precision. Its feathers are removed as it is prepared for cooking. Looking on, as if the victim of some malicious torture, is another chicken. Its eyes convey a sense of understanding, a knowledge that it is next on the chopping block. At its first opportunity, it makes for an escape.
Chased through the streets by a gang of teenagers wielding firearms, eager for the return of their meal, the chicken bobs this way and that, narrowly missing the screeching wheels of a police car in a nifty bit of stuntwork that must be seen to be believed. Soon it is cornered in an alley by the mouthwatering gang. A narrator warns: "In the City of God," for that is the name of this slum, Rio's largest, "if you stay, they get you... if you run away, they get you too."
"City of God" (a.k.a. "Cidade de Deus"), the film by directors Kátia Lund and Fernando Meirelles based on the novel by Paulo Lins, tells a cautionary tale of poverty run amok. It is a tale fraught with violence, drug abuse, loyalties forged and loyalties broken. It is a story that could not be more relevant, while dipping into our ancient past for its deeper messages.
In 426 AD, looking for an explanation that didn't implicate Christianity after the fall of Rome, St. Augustine completed his text, "City of God". In it he described two metaphorical cities: an earthly city and a heavenly one. The former is corrupted by the violent nature of man, ruined by his litigations, his wars, and his quarrels. It is concerned with the love of the self, over the love of the Divine. The latter city is populated by those who have been saved by God's good graces, and are thus immune from humanly vices. It is concerned with the love of God, over the love of the self. The glory that eluded Rome will only be achieved by those citizens of the City of God.
In this light, the name of the slum in Rio is both steeped in irony and hopefulness. Obviously its City of God is more akin to Augustine's earthly city, with its excessive violence, its poverty, its drug abuse, and its subservience to the lust for power. But, like the lone orchid that blossoms in the prison yardš, hope for its retribution does survive despite all obstacles. Is this hope a saviour, or does it get stomped by the throngs of prisoners that populate it?
Paulo Lins, the author of the source book, lived in the City of God, and witnessed many of the events that are now depicted in this film (many of the film's characters are even based on real-life people, as the end credits valiantly try to prove). It's tough to believe that a sub-society this feral, this nihilistic, and this anarchic still exists in the contemporary world (the events depicted herein are from the late 1960s and early 1970s).
Our guide through this world is Rocket (Alexandre Rodrigues), one of the few children of the slum more adept at using his brains than his brawn. Rocket is a boy who actually has dreams that might lead him out of the City's boundaries: he wants to be a photographer (his observer's nature makes him a natural candidate for narrator). He doesn't want to become a hood, like his brother Goose (Renato de Souza) (at one point Rocket tries his hand at hoodlumry, but is a complete failure because he inadvertently gets to know every person he wants to kill and rob, and can't because they turn out to be "too cool"). Brother Goose is a member of The Tender Trio, along with his pals Shaggy (Jonathan Haagensen) and Clipper (Jefechander Suplino). It is the story of these three boys, a rag-tag group of ruffians prone to holding up delivery trucks at gunpoint for measly amounts of cash, that dominates the first of the films's many episodes. This episodic structure allows the filmmakers to jump around the story at will, taking the time to introduce each character thoroughly, without becoming slave to a linear narrative. "City of God" is not about one story; it is about life in the slums, and how no conclusion is ever reached via a straight line. In fact, Rocket the narrator, on several occasions says, after a brief digression, "It's not yet time to tell [that character's] story." There is so much story to tell here that the movie keeps threatening to bubble over. It's always intentionally getting ahead of itself, a storytelling device that makes it compulsively watchable as the audience is teased by events sure to come in the future.
Most of the film's "characters" are hoodlums. It is a way of life in the slums, the only means to survival. The Tender Trio are just the first of this group we're introduced to, and, even though they wield guns with abandon, they are far from the most brutal. But these scenes do offer some insight into the hoodlum's life. "A hood doesn't stop," says Berenice (Roberta Rodriguez Silvia), girlfriend of Shaggy, "he just takes a break." Is hoodlumness human nature in the City of God? And, to take the argument a step further, is man, without the limits of society, inherently evil? There is a bleak view of humanity working here, one that is quite convincing in its relentlessness.
Besides the hoodlums, who are mainly teenagers and younger, there is a surprising dearth of adults in the slums. Rocket's father makes a couple brief appearances, then disappears; a mysterious man named Shorty has a run-in with The Tender Trio; and the ineffectual police play Keystone Cops with the hoods. But other than that, the adults are few and far between. The film's final two-thirds is completely adult-free, as the Lord of the Flies-esque scenario plays itself out. It reminded me a lot of Larry Clark's "Kids", which is set in a seemingly adult-free Manhattan, only with many more girls and far fewer guns. In fact, the amount of gunplay and drug themes amongst this film's youths colour "City of God" as kind of a "Scarface For Kids".
Most, if not all, of the actors here are amateurs. In fact, a good portion of the starring roles are filled by young men who reside in the actual City of God. Rodrigues is the standout, bringing a quiet solemnity to his narrator's role, but also a good deal of fear (and joy, in the appropriate moments). Li'l Zé, the toughest and ugliest hombre in town, is placed in the able hands of Firmino da Hora, who plays him as a raving maniac whose homicidal tendencies make up for his short stature. Phelipe Haagensen, as Li'l Zé's right-hand-man Benny ("the coolest hood in the City of God"), is a charming son of a gun, with his curly dyed-blond hair and designer clothes. Haagensen plays the peacekeepr role well; it is because of Benny that some semblance of order is maintained between the hot-headed Li'l Zé and his chief rival Carrot (Matheus Nachtergaele). Special mention should be made of Alice Braga (niece of "Kiss of the Spider Woman"s Sonia Braga), who plays Rocket's lust-object Angelica. That's her 20-year old back gracing the film's poster, and her sultry sexiness providing one of the only sources of feminine relief from a film overloaded with testosterone.
Directors Lund and Meirelles, who separately have made several films in their native Brazil (none of which, to the best of my recollection, have made it to North American theatres), team up to bring a prodigious but restrained style to "City of God". Much of the camera work borders on cinéma verité, giving the film a dominant documentary feel. But in moments Lund and Meirelles pull out all the stops, composing creative setups that show a true creative spirit, and an understanding of filmmaking techniques.
The burnt-out sepia photography of the early sequences (cinematographer César Charlone manages to give the hand-held camerawork a professional feel), with Rocket, Li'l Zé, and Benny as younger boys, is contrasted well by the stark blues and shadowy greys of the later scenes when they're older and able to cause more lasting trouble (a technique butchered, methinks, by Steven Soderbergh in his aggressively hollow and over-praised "Traffic"). Their kinetic camera creates some spectacular shots (my favourite, a series of overhead shots depicting Zé's gang killing his enemies, reminds of [and rivals] Spielberg's sequence of spiders investigating an apartment complex in "Minority Report"), and their use of split screen is judicious and exciting.
The soundtrack is dominated by a healthy mix of Brazilian rhythms (contributed by Ed Cortęs and Antonio Pinto), 1970's funk (James Brown's 'Sex Machine' sits side-by-side with Carl Douglas' "Kung Fu Fighting"), and surround sound bullets (don't you dare see this film in a theatre with a sub-par sound system, otherwise you'll miss the torrential downpour of gunfire rushing by your head).
But Lund and Meirelles' biggest success is their ability to handle heartbreaking scenes of horrific violence in a blatantly cinematic and completely visceral way. In one scene, a couple of young hoods ("The Runts") face gangland execution. And when I say "young", I mean "young". They can't be much older than 10-years of age. It is a harrowing moment punctuated by the boys' uncontrolled sobs and a Sophie-style choice that goes horribly awry. Another sequence, depicting a gang-rape, features a series of fade-to-black pauses which both hide the act and make it more noxious. Each scene treads water far from the melodramatic shallow end, and gives the film much-needed weight, even after the viewer is desensitized to the sting of seeing so many flying bullets.
"City of God" is an overpowering experience. Despite its 135-minute running time (in Canada, at least) and Portuguese dialogue with English subtitles, the viewer is never let off the hook even for a moment. Between the opening and closing credits (the latter of which I beg you to watch closely) you'll find a story that'll turn your stomach, a boatload of characters to both root for and despise, and a wondrous amount of intelligent and imaginative filmmaking. And lurking beneath all that, "City of God" has much to say about the nature of man, and his prospects for achieving a good society on earth, if not entrance into Augustine's archetypal City of God (hint: it doesn't look good).
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šShamelessly stolen from The Simpsons, episode 8F20 ("Black Widower"). I figured after all the heavy-handed theological discussions(!), you needed a pop-culture reference to cleanse the palette. Well, I did, anyway.
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