City Of God Analysis

Film Review: City of God By the middle of the twentieth century, “favelas” or slums had grown to astronomical sizes, containing mass amounts of impoverished people. These favelas were overrun by hunger, filth, drugs, and disorder, making them extremely unsuitable places to live. While the police and government do not get involved with the issues of the slums, security is provided by the community and, more often than not, drug gangs keeping control over crime. Life in a slum of Brazil is certainly challenging in more ways than one: overcoming hunger, enduring acts of crime, and robbery are just a few examples. The actual slums themselves are arranged so haphazardly on the outskirts of cities that it makes them nearly impossible to tread through freely, and
negatively contributes to the disorder that already engulfs the (seemingly) infinitely vast slums. In the City of God, all of these issues are portrayed strongly through a story plot based on a true man’s life and great visual detail, explicitly revealing the harsh struggle of those who lived in favelas during this time. Although not shown in an exact favela, rather a government project, the audience is able to perceive what it would look like.
A dramatic scene where the camera casts an aerial view over the city-like slum proves how unorganized and chaotic these slums can look. All the buildings and structures are not built in sequential patterns, rather wherever a scrap of land can be built on. When the transformation of the small apartment to the drug lord’s “office” was being described, it depicted what the inside of an individual favela looked like. Dingy air fills the tiny apartment covered in filth over the worn, plastic flooring and entire surfaces. It is cramped and goes from bad to worse as the already indecent stove burner becomes a piece of scrap metal, and the barely livable space becomes infested by drugs. Only a movie could so descriptively show the horrible living conditions in people’s make-shift homes. Even the lighting enhances the dinginess that is so prevalent in these shantytowns. Moreover, the visual of wardrobe accurately matches that of true documentaries. Most people are dressed in rags or home-made clothing that is neither fitting nor sanitary, showing signs of unwashed grime and
wear. Moving aside from the obvious advantages to relating this movie historically, the underlying crisis in any disorderly community is crime. Not only do people have to worry about the common hold-up or mugging, but they also witness daily murders where sometimes no one takes the blame and is left unpunished. However, the actuality that the drug gangs help patrol the streets and keep order so that business does not suffer is a common finding. When Little Ze hears that the Runts are causing problems within the favela, most commonly robbery, he plans to show them brutally that they need to stop these crimes or else his drug dealing business will continue to reap the consequences. The action sequences that take place are not overdone in the case of such a stifling film, but rather accurate in the factual undertone of true chaos. At one point, Rocket describes the favela to be worse than purgatory, more like a hellish version of Vietnam, which would be going on within the duration of the film. Furthermore, the crime was enhanced by the infamously corrupt police, taking deals from the drug lords and sometimes escalating favela drama from bad to worse. At the very end, the cops were seen by Rocket’s camera with Little Ze cutting another deal and releasing him from their custody. These types of relationships are not uncommon between the people and the supposed “authority.” Deeper than the immediate issues, the national growth of the nation through the late sixties through the seventies is also symbolically represented. The eagerness of the government to grow was a testament to where in the middle-end of the movie, life became even more chaotic as the nation pushed for progress and expansion. Very subtly, each character’s life developed negatively, reflective in the nation’s progress: the country grew in mass and industry, but it seemed to also be approaching disarray. Another subtle portrayal of an issue is the huge disparity of wealth and income, harshly explained in the brutal motel scene where the Trio of hoodlums rob and murder the temporary residents. The people attacked are clearly rich by the fact that they can not only afford to rent a room, but are also loaded with jewelry and cash. Evidently, all the inhabitants are mostly white and rich while most of the favelans are black. This relays to the audience the issue that race and wealth are two issues that when coupled with each other, result in a large disparity and inequality that continually brings the country down. City of God is a marvelous movie that can be used as a valuable source of historical explanation and a clear visual of life in a favela. If a film can contain all this imagery to reflect deep, discrete issues, it is certainly worthy of replacing a book for a visual history lesson.