City of God

It’s a great film and well worthy of its the respect it has. It’s gruelling too, the 18 rating is due to the thread running through the film of continuous and ruthless violence of gangs trying to control their drug area. The is the story told through the eyes of ‘Rocket’ who avoids getting in to the gang war of his brother and friends by trying to find a safer life.

The film combines slick production without losing a genuine documentary feel which I think it is why it’s so enduring. While it achieves a feeling of reality, it isn’t specifically a true story. However, the Cidade de Deus is real (being created to rehouse the slums away from Rio de Janeiro) and this story of its underworld and the film’s production makes one believe it may not be too far from the truth. There is hope in the story but not a lot.

Told by way of an occasionally narrated retrospective, "Rocket" (Alexandre Rodrigues) tells us a story of his childhood in the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro. Growing up in a community of newly built boxes, without power or plumbing, that reminded me of a row of concrete beach huts, the community is pretty lawless. The crime is largely to confined to pettier crimes, but as aspirations grow so does the scale of the criminality. A raid on a motel-cum-brothel is supposed to make everyone extra cash, but their inventive young watchman "Li'l Dice" (Douglas Silva) hates being left out and so does a little augmenting of his own. Brutal and attention grabbing. Next the cops crack down, bodies pile up and the societal order starts to change. It's this young man who grows up into the leading drug-peddling hoodlum amongst a now much more developed township where, tempered only by his more diplomatic childhood friend "Bené" (Phellipe Haagensen), the newly named "Li'l Zé" (Leandro Firmino) is ruling the roost. Curiously, his own form of government proves more stable for the residents, and although many are addicts there is a certain degree of law-and-order. Then the runts start to intervene. These are the young children with no hope, no families and only the dream of becoming their own version of "Li'l Zé" one day too. Gradually, the empire expands until it's only "Carrot" (Matheus Nachtergaele) who stands against him. When tragedy strikes very close to home for the kingpin, though, the uneasy peace between the two sections breaks out into an open warfare that drags in the sharpshooting army vet "Knockout Ned" (Seu Jorge), arms all the enthusiastic children and creates an environment that isn't safe for anyone - and where the police keep their distance in the hope that they will just all just slaughter each other. It's lucky that "Rocket" can use a camera. His boss wants publicity to illustrate how dominant and powerful he is. The newspapers want the photographs too. If the young m...