MOVIE - CITY OF GOD - Review Rating $$$$$ $$$$ (OUT OF 10)

STARRING - Alexandre Rodrigues (Rocket), Firmino da Hora (L'il Ze Leandro), Phelipe Haagensen (Benny), Matheus Nachtergaele (Carrott), Johnathan Haagensen (Shaggy), & Seu Jorge (Knockout Ned).

DIRECTOR - Fernando Meirelles

A coming of age story set in the Rio de Janeiro slum known as the City of God (Cidade de Deus).

City of God, a name that epitomizes Orwellian doublespeak, is a housing project in Brazil's largest city (Rio de Janeiro) meant to house and hide that country's "tired ...poor... wretched huddled masses... yearning to breathe free". It is, in fact, a place that suffocates humanity and where the cheapest commodity is life itself. This road to perdition, unlike other more circuitous routes paved with good intentions, is straight and unadorned with even the basic niceties.

City of God is narrated by, Rocket (Rodrigues), one of the few to escape the clutches of the cycle of violence that permeates the ghetto. This results in the oppressiveness of the circumstances, he and his friends find themselves in, being imbued with a certain warmth and charm that is synonymous with tales of childhood friendships. Amidst the carnage these boys, like the boys everywhere, are still concerned with such trivial matters as first love and losing one's virginity.

In fact, much of the violence portrayed, in City of God, is surrealistic verging on cartoonish. There are two reasons for this. First, when violence becomes a way of life, ordinary evil truly begins to seem banal and loses its capacity to shock. Secondly, childhood is a fleeting experience for the young growing up in the City of God. The mean streets require these boys to become men too quickly and the men, that rule the roost, are mere boys. The violence and corruption is filtered through the prism of misplaced childhood wonder.

This is the most disturbing aspect of City of God. It is easy, almost too easy, for the viewer to forget about the degree of depravity that shapes the lives of these young men and get caught up in the riveting and compelling gangland drama that is being played out. The brilliance of City of God is that it still manages to convey the harshness of the environment and be a searing social commentary while letting the viewer come up for air occasionally.

City of God is in many ways similar to, but clearly better than, Gangs of New York. The reasons why City of God is a better movie is that the opening sequence is as intense and symbolic, it maintains that vibrancy through the rest of the movie, it alludes to but doesn't get sidetracked by other intervening social issues, the male/female relationships are logical extensions of the characters and not Hollywood blockbuster contrivances and its over an hour shorter. When compared, to Gangs of New York, the shortcomings of the latter become blatantly clear. City of God, technically eligible for consideration in the category of Best Foreign Language film at the 75th Annual Academy Awards, was inexcusably overlooked.

City of God is, to be as plain and simple as possible, a must see movie.

Running time - 135 minutes

ALTERNATIVE REVIEWS:

Roger Ebert's Review

Peter Travers Rolling Stone Review

Rotten Tomatoes Reviews

CITY OF GOD OFFICIAL WEBSITE

---

© Copyright 2003 David Schwartz. Last update: 8/9/03; 11:07:45 PM. This theme is based on the SoundWaves (blue) Manila theme.