City of God Review: Yes, that’s going to be the topic today… Any questions?

Well, the English class is over and I’m enjoying my short vacations doing what I like to do the most. And that’s watching movies and TV shows. For example, I’m watching a show called “Mad Men” created by Matthew Weiner, one of the writers from The Sopranos, but I’m going to talk about that in other post.

But, this is hard for me to do it, because a reviewer needs to keep subjective when it comes to analyze something and the movie that I’m going to do it happens to be one of my favorite films of all time. I’m talking of course of Fernando Meirelles crime drama masterpiece “Cidade de Deus” City of god for those who don’t talk Portuguese.

You came to the wrong neighbourhood Motherf*cker

And just in case you don’t know, I don’t care, and I’m going to write this in capitals so you can understand it I DON’T CARE about the world cup, so this particular choice has absolute nothing to do with the demise of Brazil during the Match with Germany (although it was kinda funny watching them lose the game in their own country)

But, enough with the pointless talking and let’s starting with the reviewing (Spoiler Alert):

We opened the movie watching a chicken escaping in a favela, where a group of gangsters chase it around the streets. The animal stops in front of a young photographer called Buscapé (Rocket) who is the main character and narrator. Buscapé thinks that the Gang wants to kill him and suddenly we cut to a flashback to explain the whole story. And that’s where the movie begins.

We learn that Buscapé was raised in a very poor town in the sixties and his brother Marreco (Goose), was part of a little gang called “the tender trio” along with his friends Cabeleira (Shaggy) and Alicate (Clipped) who stole money from people from the outside and split it with thwe citizens. Kind of like Robin Hood, so they were respected for that.

But one day, Dadihno (Lil Dice), a boy who idolized the Trio suggested them to assault a Motel in order to abandon their thieves’ lives and escape to something better. Dadihno however, was a very violent and ambitious kid who wanted to grow up to become a gangster and he suggested them to do it because he wanted to be initiated into that life. The Trio, of course do not let him to do that and assign him as lookout.

But during the assault, someone broke a glass in the motel and activated the alarm; the Trio, who wanted to take the money without killing anyone, escaped very quickly and didn’t earned enough money to escape from their life crime. The three gangsters split up and tried to redeem themselves after that day.

Cabeleira fell in love with a woman and later decided to work in order to change his life, Marreco started to work selling fishes with his father warning his brother to not choose the life of crime and keep studying, and Alicate joined the church. But an incident related with a man killing his wife because she had an affair with Buscape´s brother brought attention t the police, resulting in the death of Cabeleira during an escape.

Later, in the seventies we follow the misadventures of Buscapé tring to lose the virginity with a girl named Angelica, who was part of a group of Hippies from the Favela who smoke marihuana and went to parties and stuff. Buscapé, who developed a passion for photography was the official photographer and the one responsible of getting the weed.

But one day he went to the apartment where his official Pot Dealer Neguinho (Blackie) was taking by surprise by Dadihno, who change his name to Ze Pequeno (Lil Ze) and discovered through a flashback story that he was the one who broke the glass from the motel and later he killed everyone in there. Later he killed Buscape’s brother when he tried to take the money he stole. And after that he started his new life as a gangster along with his best friend Bené (Benny), who was the older brother of Cabeleira.

Benny, who was the Jiminy Cricket of Ze, prevented him to start a feud with a gangster called Cenoura (carrot) who was Bene’s friend and the only gangster leader who was not killed by Ze during his rise to power.

Then, everything went surprisingly peaceful in the Favela. Angelica became Bene’s boyfriend; Ze stopped some group of kids called “The runts” from robbing and vandalizing the favela without his authority; Buscapé went through a series of unfortunate events until he got a job in the newspaper; Neguinho was expelled from the apartment; and Bené decided to leave the life of crime where he was shot by Neguinho who wanted to killed Ze and not him.

Ze, without Bene being the voice of reason, became crazier and started a war against Cenoura. But first, he took a personal revenge and raped a girl who reject him during the farewell party of Bene and humiliated his boyfriend Mané Galinha (Knockout Ned). And not only that, he decided to murder the guy in his house and killed his brother and Uncle instead. So Mané, who was a pacifist decided to join Cenoura’s gang in order to take revenge against Lil Ze.

And After a lot of assaults, people joining one side or another for revenge and murder after murder after murder, the mob war has begun. Buscapé who just wanted to survive in that crzy world became the official photographer of Lil Ze and his gang when he took a picture of them with their guns and accidentally gave the photos to the press and spread the word about Ze’s mob family (although that was the thing Ze wanted, but Buscapé wasn’t aware).

And finally we get to the beginning of the film when Buscapé was found by Ze’s gang and just in that moment, the police and Cenoura’s gang appeared and started their last battle. Resulting in Mané getting killed by a kid who searched for revenge against him because he killed his father in one of the assaults, Ze and Cenoura got arrested but Ze was released by the corrupt cops and that moment was captured by Buscape. And finally, The Runts killed Ze in the same alley and took his place as the mob leaders of the Favela completing the cycle of violence and ending the film on a high note.

Wow, that was a lot of Writing don’t you think? I mean, this a very complex movie in terms of writing and argument so ther’e a lot of things that I couldn’t leave out, but I hope you don’t mind.

So, what’s my opinion about the film? Well… that it’s freaking awesome. The music, the story, the writing, the acting, the pacing and the fact that every actor in this film came from the favelas in real life make this movie one of the most gruesome and realistic crime flicks of all time.

But if I had to choose some nitpick, I’d say that the main character it’s not that interesting. Don’t get me wrong, the guy is very likeable. But it’s very evident that he’s just there to be the vehicle of the story via narration instead of one character with a much bigger role. But, to be fair, a movie with the incredible amount of subplots and story arcs like this it’s very hard to get through that.

And it’s very interesting the influence of Tarantino films in this movie. You can notice that not only in the narrative, but also in the style and the aestheticization of violence presented during the most violent secuences.

The good thing about this it’s that gave us the benefit of the doubt about the gangster’s life. Instead of trying to convince us about something, it showed us why this happens and showed us that through the point of view of three-dimensional characters. I mean even Lil Ze, who is depicted as a sociopath with no redeemable qualities, has his own reasons to do what he think is right. He just want to be respected, he wanted to be more powerful, but that life corrupted him to the point of insanity and ended the same way it started: with a grown up gangster being shot by a kid.

So if don’t watched: what the hell are you doing reading this? Go and watch it right now. It’s one of those flicks you must see before you die. Sure that I did it and I’m going to watch it over and over before leaving this world.

And that was my post from today. Take care and study to become an important person in the future. Unless you want to be a movie star like the people who participated in this film. So… don’t listen to me and choose books over crooks. Bye.