Fernando Meirelles’ epic crime thriller and gangster film City of God portrays the infamous and impoverished Cidade de Deus or City of God favela of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil from the late 1960s to early 1980s when the favelas like the City of God in Rio were completely controlled and ruled by notorious gangsters endangering the lives of ordinary citizens. The sources of income were multiple illegal activities like robbery and drug business. Anybody could be threatened at gunpoint at any moment. Life seemed to be impossible in the City of God as if it was the city of demons and definitely not God. Despite being parts of the city, favelas like the City of God were far away from Rio’s famous color, vigor, grandeur, glamor, and aristocracy as if those favelas didn’t exist in Rio at all. The film is based on the famous semi-autobiographical novel City of God by Brazilian author Paulo Lins who himself spent his childhood days in the City of God favela. Even though the film is one of the most dynamic films in cinema history, director Fernando Meirelles and co-director Katia Lund didn’t glamorize the violence, and multiple violent encounters are depicted indirectly off the screen. When the world started recognizing Brazil as a major developing country, favelas like the City of God remained in never-ending darkness excluded from all the development and economic prosperity.
The film starts with some gang members chasing a chicken on a road in the City of God favela in Rio de Janeiro. A young man named Rocket (Alexandre Rodrigues), who is also the narrator of the film, comes in front of the chicken while walking down the road. The film then flashes back to the childhood days of Rocket in the newly built City of God favela. Initially, the film introduces the viewers to the “Tender Trio” namely Shaggy (Jonathan Haagensen), Goose, and Clipper who have just robbed a few shops and are hiding in the neighborhood. As per L’il Dice’s (Douglas Silva) information, they rob a motel with the intent of not killing anyone. However, L’il Dice betrays them by falsely informing them about the arrival of police officials and killing the motel guests. Heavy police raids and security descend upon the City of God. Police officials kill Shaggy by shooting while escaping. L’il Dice kills Goose. Clipper leaves all these criminal activities and joins the Church.
Now, the film shifts forward to the 1970s. Rocket joins a young group and falls in love with Angelica (Alice Braga) but can’t express his love for her. Li’l Dice has grown up to be a notorious gangster and is now referred to as Li’l Ze (Leandro Firmino). He eliminates all other gangsters and controls almost the entire drug business of City of God. The only competition still remains is Carrot (Matheus Nachtergaele). Benny (Phellipe Haagensen) is Li’l Ze’s childhood friend and business partner. However, he is a friend of Carrot as well. Angelica breaks up with Tiago who introduces Benny to their friend group. Benny starts dating Angelica and decides to leave the drug business as well as the City of God.
During Benny’s farewell party, Li’l Ze fails to convince Benny not to leave his gang and drug business. L’il Ze also fails to convince a pretty young girl to dance with him. Carrot’s business manager blacky, who is now forced to work for L’il Ze, accidentally kills Benny instead of L’il Ze. The news of Benny’s murder shatters Carrot as he is very much aware that now nobody can save his drug business from Li’l Ze. Carrot kills Blacky in extreme anger. On his way to Carrot’s place, Li’l Ze meets the girl who declined his proposal to dance with him, rapes her, and beats her boyfriend Knockout Ned (Seu Jorge), a peaceful person and former security officer. When Knockout Ned’s brother stabs Li’l Ze, his gang members fire heavily on Knockout Ned’s house and kill his brother and uncle. An intense gang war breaks out in early 1980 between the gangs of L’il Ze and Carrot. A revengeful Knockout Ned joins Carrot’s gang.
Li’l Ze and Carrot start including more and more gang members. Guns are even distributed among little boys referred to as runts. Rocket now works as a delivery associate with a newspaper company. He captures photographs of L’il Ze’s gang but a reporter of that newspaper publishes a photograph as a scoop without informing him. Rocket now fears for his life. However, Li’l Ze becomes utterly happy with the publicity of him and his gang.
The photographs of L’il Ze and his gang make Rocket an important resource for the newspaper and earn him a job as a photographer. He returns to City of God for more pictures and gets caught in the middle of a gunfight between Li’l Ze’s gang and the police, thereby, arriving in the opening sequence of the film. Considering defeat, the police officials leave the spot. Instead of attacking, Li’l Ze requests Rocket to capture more photographs of his gang. When Rocket is about to capture the photograph, Carrot’s gang carries out an all-out attack on Li’l Ze’s gang. A little boy avenges his father’s murder by killing Knockout Ned. Police officials arrest both Carrot and Li’l Ze. However, Li’l Ze bribes the police secretly and gets released, which is secretly photographed by Rocket. The runts kill Li’l Ze, capture his business, and make a hit list to capture the entire drug business of the City of God. Instead of the bribing photograph, Rocket decides to publish the photograph of L’il Ze’s dead body, which will earn him an internship at the newspaper.
In City of God, director Fernando Meirelles and co-director Katia Lund have vividly shown how a section of society descends into extreme darkness, turmoil, and violence when it is excluded. Even though apparently it looks like a crime thriller and gangster film, the main theme of this film is exclusion. In the early 1960s, the then-Brazilian government shifted the slum areas of Rio from the middle to the western part of the city. Thus, favelas like the City of God were created and also separated from mainstream society. The same phenomenon is seen throughout the world. The proverb says that a rolling stone gathers no moss. So, when a stone is static and isolated, it is covered with moss. Same way, when a part of society gets excluded, it is bound to be filled with all the negative forces like poverty, illiteracy, corruption, crime, drug addiction, and a complete breakdown of law and order. All those happened to the City of God as well. In those unbearable circumstances, life seemed to be futile and feeble.
Another important aspect that City of God shows is how ordinary civilians get impacted by the violence and then become a part of it. Initially, ex-security person Knockout Ned remains peaceful and enjoys his time with his girlfriend far away from violence and drug business. But, when Li’l Ze beats him, rapes his girlfriend, attacks his house, and kills his brother and uncle, he becomes revengeful and joins hands with Carrot. When an innocent man is pushed to the extreme end, quite naturally, he becomes revengeful and a party to the violence. He cannot be completely blamed for that. When a fire breaks out, it burns down everything.
City of God shows how the Cycle of Life continues. Good deeds are passed on to the next generation. Bad deeds are also passed on to the next generation. L’il Ze gains the control of City of God by brutally killing other gangsters. So, when the runts get the opportunity, they brutally kill Li’l Ze and capture his drug business. The criminal activities go on across generations and the Cycle of Life continues.
The screenplay of City of God, which is based on Paulo Lins’ semi-autobiographical novel of the same name, honestly illustrates the City of God favela, its people, crime, violence, drug business, and suffering of ordinary citizens. The screenplay remains truthful to the novel and does not glorify the violence. Apart from Matheus Nachtergaele and Alice Braga, the cast mostly includes non-professional actors. Many of them lived in real favelas and a few of them even lived in the City of God favela. The actors were trained in a workshop for more than 6 months. Instead of repetitive rehearsals, the shots were finalized based on continuous improvisation on the location. So, director Fernando Meirelles and co-director Katia Lund were able to create an exact replica of City of God in the film.
City of God marks one of the most dynamic cinematography achievements in cinema history. Cinematographer Cesar Charlone’s camera is always on the move to discover something interesting, new, horrendous, violent, and terrible. The absence of special effects enriches the film with raw images like documentaries. City of God is filled with almost all cinematic shots like close-ups, long, mid, high angle, low angle, Dutch angle, tracks, pans, circular tracks, and whip pan. Multiple low-angle shots make Li’l Ze’s character look notorious. High-angle long shots establish the surrounding of the Rio’s infamous City of God favela. The very fast circular tracking shot of Rocket when the story flashes back to his childhood is superbly executed and enthralling. Cinematographer Charlone brilliantly adjusted the depth of field in the film. He used a shallow depth of field for establishing the characters and a deep depth of field for establishing the surrounding. Blue and grey color palettes were used for showing extreme violence and criminal activities after Li’l Ze takes over the control of the City of God.
Another important aspect of City of God is the lighting used in the film. Bright lighting has been used during Rocket’s childhood days and his friendship days with the young boys on the beach. The screen becomes darker with the enhancement of violence and crime. When Benny dies, darkish blue lighting has been used probably to denote Benny’s stability, reliability, and also the pathos generated because of his death.
The story of City of God is told through the voice-over of the protagonist named Rocket. The voice-over is the most important sound throughout the film as the other sounds are muted when the voice-over is played on the screen. Multiple diegetic sounds are heard in the film. The sharpening sound of the knife at the start of the film creates a sense of terror. All the sound sources make viewers feel the excessive violence displayed on the screen.
In addition to breathtaking super-dynamic cinematography, City of God is enriched with dynamic editing, which perfectly complements the cinematography. Filmmaker Fernando Meirelles and editor Daniel Rezende decided to proceed with the “Introduction” approach for the film wherein characters are introduced first freezing the screen and then their backgrounds are revealed. It’s like the mid, start, and end approach. There are multiple brilliant scenes in the film. The chicken chase scene, which the film starts with, is extraordinary. Rocket’s childhood is flashed back from the chicken chase scene through an excellent circular track shot. The montage used in the film to show Li’l Dice’s transformation to Li’l Ze is brilliant. Editor Rezende always searched for an effect and sped up or slowed down the motion as per the mood of the film.
Viewers may feel that City of God has an excess of music. Director Fernando Meirelles and co-director Katia Lund used extensive music to capture the music culture of the Rio favelas during that period. Despite terror and violence, the residents of the favelas like the City of God loved music. So, filmmakers used funk, soul, and samba soundtracks by famous Brazilian musicians like Hyldon, Tim Maia, Raul Seixas, Cartola, Simonal, and Seu Jorge in the film. The music portrays Brazilian culture and tradition of that bygone era amid unbearable and terrorizing violence when life just seemed to be impossible.
As violence continued in the City of God favela, a majority portion of City of God was filmed in another favela called Cidade Alta. However, there was no issue with the security of the cast and crew. Local security guards were deployed and the filming was wrapped up safely. Since the release of the film, City of God has received universal critical acclaim and many international awards. It was nominated for Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, and Best Film Editing at the 76th Academy Awards. It was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 60th Golden Globe Awards. City of God won Best Editing and was nominated for Best Film Not in the English Language at the 56th BAFTA Awards.