Overall Rating
  Awesome: 80.87%
Worth A Look: 12.17%
Average: 1.74%
Pretty Bad: 1.74%
Total Crap: 3.48%
5 reviews, 85 user ratings
|
|
| City of God |
by Son of Funkenstein
"Shocking, stunning, stupefying... an awesome experience"
|
City of God is a Brazilian true-life story detailing the lives (and horribly gruesome deaths) of the inhabitants of impossibly impoverished inhabitants of Rio de Janeiro's favellas. This is an arresting and unmissable cinematic triumph, peopled with affecting characters that avoid cliche, and a familiar story signposted with brutally shocking punctuationWe are introduced to our protagonist, an aspiring photographer known as Rocket (Alexandre Rodgrigues), at the end of a breathless chase through the slum streets of the City of God. And there we find him poised between the police and the terrifying tooled-up child hoodlums of the favella.
The film told in through episodic flashbacks, then spins back (from the "present" of the 1970's) to the 1960's where we watch Rocket grow up in the shadow of his brother Goose and his "Tender Trio" of small-time hoods. And we begin to see how these children, brought up in an amoral and violent environment, are sucked into criminality and violence, not as the exception - but as the rule.
In no character is this more obvious than in Li'l Dice (Douglas Silva)[/i}. Dice is a precocious child with a talent for crime, and thirst for murder. Even as he leads the older hoods into a heist of a lifetime at the local brothel, we can feel his hunger for more than simple robbery, and our suspicions are soon justified when we are shown Dice's childish glee as he undertakes a killing spree with his new gun.
What is perhaps most shocking is that this is no cinematic conceit, this is the reality of the Brazilian slum, where today, right now, child assassins are ten-a-penny, where shop keepers (allegedly) pay off-duty police men to kill off street children like rats.
Anyhow, Dice grows up to be Li'l Ze - the terrifying gangster that he always promised to be, taking over the City's drug dealers in a day-long orgy of murder. He is accompanied by lifelong friend Benny, who is "the coolest hood in the City", and also the only force capable of stemming Ze's bloodlust.
Rocket continues to struggle to avoid the criminal life, frankly he doesn't have what it takes, and whilst he abhors the hoods and their murderous ways, eventually it is his relationship with them that gives him his first big break as a photographer. (Rocket is revealed to be well known - in Brazil - photographer Walter Rodriguez).
More than the overall story arc, which is familiar and well worn, it the punctuating scenes that are most affecting. From local snitch Shorty's treatment of his adulterous wife, to Li'l Ze cajoling and threatening a small boy into murdering an even younger child for breaking the rules, from Rocket's repeated failure to commit crime, to Ze's "soviet attack" death at the hands of a gang of under-tens; City of God is littered with shocking and outrageous moments.
I wished I could turn away, I wished I could dismiss what I was seeing as fiction, but I couldn't. Even without the background knowledge of the reality of the story, the acting by a cast composed exclusively of first-timers from the actual slums of Rio is absolutely immaculate. Their energy and believability is incredible and the director handles them beautifully to deliver, without fail, exceptional performances from central and supporting characters alike.This is not a film you are going to forget in a hurry. Trust me, this a film that you HAVE to see. Funny, shocking, touching and powerful it is what all film-makers aspire to.
A masterpiece.
 del.icio.us 
link directly to this review at http://efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=6574&reviewer=339
originally posted: 08/04/03 20:24:33
![[printer]](/images/icon/printer.gif) printer-friendly format
|
OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2003 Palm Springs Film Festival. For more in the 2003 Palm Springs Film Festival series, click here.
OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2002 Vancouver Film Festival. For more in the 2002 Vancouver Film Festival series, click here.
|
 |
USA
17-Jan-2003 (R)
DVD: 08-Jun-2004
UK
N/A
Australia
13-Mar-2003
|
|
Articles 
subscribe to this feed
![[AllPosters.com]](/images/icon/ap.gif){kind=icon}
