Cidade de Deus

Watched City of God this weekend and I implore you to believe the hype, it is THAT good. Stop what you are doing now and go see it. All those people that lined up for weeks and took days off work to see Phantom Menace, drop everything and go see City of God to purge yourself of those sins.

The movie charts roughly 10 years in the City of God, a slum area of Rio De Janeiro. The story follows a young wannabe photographer Rocket (Alexandre Rodrigues) and his life with the roving gangs, especially the rise of the brutal drug dealer, Lil Dice who becomes Lil Ze (Leandro Firmino da Hora). It is about hold ups, drug deals, growing up, rape, murder and revenge. The cliché: cycle of violence is often overused, but it is never more apt than here, with mini cycles spinning over and over and over throughout the film.

Fernando Meirelles's direction is simply electrifying. It is dazzling and intoxicating, fast, modern and sharp. It has been compared to Goodfellas by the way it engages the audience into the gang and slums, so you can see it, feel it and almost touch it. It is also compares to the Scorsese classic because it's in the same league. Although the film is brutal and violent, it is also moral, and does not forget the gangs are basically pre-teens, lead by teenagers. Kids who play football, fall in love, get high and have teenaged angst, such as losing one's virginity and physical appearance. Kids, also with big ideas, drugs and guns. One of the more disturbing scenes is where a young teenaged boy is forced by Lil Ze to choose and shoot a member of a child gang, no older than 7 or 8. The boys think they are men, "I snort and I smoke", they chant. The adults tell them they are too young and to go to school, but are routinely ignored. One moral adult, Knockout Ned, who diverts Rocket away from a life of crime, is unwittingly a victim of Lil Ze and becomes part of a rival gang. When a gang war breaks out, schools of children are willing cannon fodder.

The thing I love about this film is the story telling and development. I love the way a girly sex chat with a girl leads to a cuckolded husband to batter his wife with a shovel, and how one of the gang leaders Benny becomes a playboy hippy rather than a hood. I love the still camera, as it observes an apartment change over the years, from a family home decaying into a drugs den. I love the way Knockout Ned has his moral rules when joining the gang (no killing of innocent people), to having an exception to the rule, to the exception being the rule. I love Rocket's attempted foray into crime and his bid to lose his virginity. I love the begining, and the end and all the strands and stories in the middle. I loved everything about this movie.