Since its first showing in 2002, City of God has been praised for showing crime in Rio de Janeiro’s favelas in a way that is both stylish and true to life. City of God, which Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund directed together, is a classic Brazilian film that was a worldwide hit. It’s still one of the highest-grossing movies ever made in Brazil, and it’s tied for the most Oscar nominations for a Brazilian movie. The movie was nominated for Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Editing, and Best Cinematography at the 2004 Academy Awards. Continue reading the City of God Cast and Review to learn more about the film.
Review
City of God is a powerful and emotionally intense movie about poverty, crime, and violence in Rio de Janeiro’s poor neighborhoods. The spacemov movie shows how Rocket and Li’l Ze grow up in the slums and get involved in crime as they get older. The movie is gritty and true to life; all the actors do a great job.
The movie does a great job of showing how hard life is in the slums. The movie shows how different the poor and wealthy parts of the city are. The movie also does a great job of showing how crime and violence affect the people who live in the slums. The movie shows how crime can tear a community apart and make escaping a cycle of violence and poverty hard.
Story And Cast
Rocket (Luis Otavio) is an 11-year-old slum boy in Cidade de Deus outside Rio in the 1960s. He and other kids like Benny (Michel De Souza Gomes) and Li’l Dice (Douglas Silva) watch as Rocket’s brother Goose (Renato De Souza) and his buddies Shaggy (Jonathan Haagensen) and Clipper (Jefechander Suplino) habitually hold up gas trucks and get into another mischief. When the three let Li’l Dice commit a crime, the ravenous thug-in-training jumps at the chance.
In the 1970s, Rocket (Alexandre Rodrigues) is a young man trying to find out what to do with his life while hanging out with a group of pals, including Thiago (Daniel Zettel) and Angelica (Alice Braga), who are both in love with her. Li’l Dice, on the other hand, got what he wanted. After taking over the lucrative drug business with Benny ( Phellipe Haagensen) and their army of young youngsters, including Steak & Fries (Darlan Cunha), who look up to them like they did to the prior trio of criminals, he now rules the city as Li’l Zé (Leandro Firmino Da Hora).
Over the years, competing dealers like Carrot (Matheus Nachtergaele) threaten his reign. Knockout Ned (Seu Jorge), a bus driver furious by Li’l Zé and his gang raping his fiancée, sets out to murder the feared and ruthless leader. Rocket, now an aspiring photographer, captures the city’s major gang battle on film to escape poverty and turmoil.
Visuals
The way that shot was done—with the spinning camera, the flashback, and the change in colors from the dark, bright colors of the slum to the dusty, sunny browns of the soccer field—tells us that this movie is visually alive and creative in a way that few movies are. Meirelles started as a director of TV commercials, which gave him a good understanding of technique and, according to him, taught him to work quickly, figure out what a shot needs, get it, and move on. Working with cinematographer Cesar Charlone, he uses quick cuts and a mobile, hand-held camera to tell his story with the speed and detail it deserves. Sometimes these techniques can make a just busy movie, but “City of God” feels like sight itself, as we look here and there and see danger or opportunity everywhere.
Final Thought
In my opinion, “City of God” deserves its special place in the history of movies. This movie stays real because it is based on a true story about real people in a real place, as told in a factual novel by Paulo Lins. This go movies shows the tragic effects of extreme poverty in places worldwide. I think Meirelles has done a great job of showing this, from the story to the cast to the film’s overall style. “City of God” is a moving, powerful, thought-provoking masterpiece.
