Dir: Fernando Meirelles, Katia Lund
Cast: Alexandre Rodrigues, Alice Braga
City of God is one of the greatest films ever made. It features great, realistic performances from a very young cast all around and it is shot so vibrantly and so fluidly that you instantly feel as if you're in the action from the very beginning. The picture that City of God paints is by no means a pretty one. City of God perfectly captures the slums of Rio de Janeiro as a very dangerous, cruel place where the kids are forced to be part of a gang or else they won't last long. But within this mean, violent place is this rather positive story about a boy's dream of becoming an aspiring photographer and the ways he manages to avoid being sucked into a world of crime that is so popular in this neighborhood of Rio.
City of God opens appropriately enough with a chicken on the loose and a couple of armed gang members chasing it so they can eat it. The chicken stops and suddenly the narrator, Buscape has found himself trapped with gang leader Ze Pequeno and his group of young men and Buscape is afraid that they're going to kill him. And thus beginning the wild journey, told by Buscape, of growing up in Cidade de Deus.
The story not only involves him, but also the rise of Ze Pequeno and how, when he was much younger, he joined up with three older gang members who forced him to be a lookout while they subsequently robbed a hotel. But Ze Pequeno quickly demonstrates how he came to be a feared legend in the neighborhood with his penchant for bloodlust when he takes over the robbery and kills every person inside the hotel. From then on, Ze would become the leader of a group called Caixa Baixa.
We discover just how these people lived, how they managed to steer clear of cops, and just how terrible of a person Ze Pequeno is who reminds me of a much more heartless version of Tsotsi (from the movie of the same name). We learn about the disturbing events that eventually escalates into a war between the two main gangs in Cidade de Deus. And that whole war sequence is just an absolute marvel to watch. There are a lot of scenes in here where you can't believe what is happening, especially one scene where a kid, who can't be any older than 8, is forced to shoot his friend in the foot. Not only do you have to praise the child actors in that scene, but you wonder "how in the world did they pull that off so convincingly?"
Because the most shocking thing about City of God is that it's all shot on location. It's easy then to see how they were able to pull it off but it would seem like it would be a very difficult film to shoot in the midst of one of the most violent neighborhoods in the world. Fernando Meirelles hasn't been able to surpass this film but the way he was able to make this movie and just how great it turned out grants him endless praise.
But like I said, there is a faint amount of optimism within this movie that keeps you from being totally depressed and that's Buscape's incredible journey through all this madness. His levelheadedness is crucial in a movie that has characters that are anything but levelheaded. However, there's also that ominous hint within the movie that lets you know that Cidade de Deus will perhaps always remain the way it is without direct government intervention.
With City of God, you get the best of everything. It's a movie that has, deservedly so, received instant classic status and it remains one movie that you absolutely must see. It's a movie that will always seem fresh, dangerous, and brilliant no matter how many times you go back to it and that's why it remains the greatest film of the decade.
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