\City of God"" provides a stark look into the drug-ridden Rio De Janeiro slums during the '60s, '70s and early '80s. While reading captions for two hours may get tiring, ""City of God"" is an eye-opening look at a world far removed from most people's realm of experience.
Based on the novel of the same name by Paolo Lins, Director Fernando Meirelles wrenches us deep inside the poverty-stricken projects where barbarity, revenge and greed have fueled decades of vicious drug wars.
The narrator, Rocket (Alexandre Rodrigues), shows the audience a world where trigger-happy children carry around guns as if murder is just a fun game everyone plays, and where they are willing to give up their lives for their gang at an early age.
Desperation drives the underclass children of the Brazilian favelas (slums) to kill. They live in a world where crime seems to be the only option. Even the characters with hope and peace in the beginning of the film veer into a life of crime in order to avenge those they have lost to this whirlwind rivalry.
The movie's casting successfully creates a vivid portrayal of this tragic story. Instead of using professionals, casting directors auditioned kids from the favelas and then allowed them to improvise the scenes with no directorial control. By using these locals, a level of realism is brought that easily surpasses any effects professional actors could have created.
Emotionally gripping and at times hard to watch, gruesome gang war scenes provide a raw glimpse into the chaos and bloodshed that occurred between rivalries of teenage drug barons and violent children. Perhaps even more shocking is the fact that this dreadful story is true.
The amount of power held by these angry, immoral youngsters is demonstrated throughout the movie, provoking an uneasy feeling of suspense. From the moment the movie's antagonist, Lil Ze (Leandro Firmino da Hora), first feels the exciting rush of murder at just a few years of age, to the moment he is brutally attacked and murdered by a small gang of children, it is evident the story can only end in tragedy.
The only hope for a happy ending comes from Rocket who, rather than seeking to avenge his brother's death and take revenge against Lil Ze's empire, watches the final drug war explode from behind his camera's lens, leading him to his dream of becoming a professional photographer. The ""beginning of the end,"" as he called the last battle, provided him, if no one else, with a new beginning.
