Life in Rio de Janeiro can seem to be like a festival rich in bright colors and positive emotions. However, City of God (Cidade de Deus) (2002), the Brazilian film directed by Fernando Meirelles, represents another side of this vivid life because of depicting the life in favelas surrounding the city center in Rio de Janeiro. Favelas are the specific territories inhabited by the poor Brazilians who have to live in isolation from the other city population and according to slums’ norms, which are based on accepting the rule of violence and crimes (“City of God”). Many critics cannot agree on the role of the film informing the vision of the favelas’ reality because of stating that extreme violence depicted in the film as the gangster movie is exaggerated (Rafter and Brown 182).
Nevertheless, the other critics are inclined to argue that the City of God is a social and crime drama, and it provides the real picture of the situation in Brazil in the 1960s-1980s (Shaw 63; Vieira 34). To evaluate the role of City of God in forming the audience’s vision of the favelas’ reality, it is necessary to focus on such criteria as the depiction of the film’s characters, specifics of cinematography, and features of the plot. From this point, City of God is extremely good in providing the credible and reliable discussion of the favelas’ reality during the 1960s-1980s because of the realistic characters’ portrayals, because of the high-quality cinematography based on the principle of improvisation, and because of the realistic plot based in some details on the real events.
The first criterion to discuss is the depiction of the characters in the City of God, and the main characters of Li’l Dice and Rocket can be evaluated as rather realistic in their nature because Meirelles is inclined to focus on these men’s intrinsic motives, intentions, and desires as well as on their feelings of frustration in detail. The depicted favelas are the slums where many families have to live in dangerous conditions and suffer from the lack of space and funds. The main social rules are provided by the leaders of the youth gangs, which won control over all the aspects of life in these favelas (Vieira 34-36). Accepted legal norms and laws do not work in these slums, and Li’l Dice and Rocket, as the main characters of the film, have to choose between the paths to follow in their life under the pressure of the described conditions (“City of God”). In spite of the same social origin and the fact of birth in the favela known as the City of God, Li’l Dice and Rocket focus on rather different visions of their future life.
Thus, Li’l Dice is ready to share the life of the slum’s gangsters because it is the easiest way to overcome poverty and play according to the slums’ rules. Concentrating on his choice, Li’l Dice becomes one of the most powerful gangsters in City of God. This character is depicted as maximally true-to-life because the image of Li’l Dice is based on the combination of the features typical for the most influential gangsters in Rio de Janeiro’s favelas during the 1980s (“City of God”). Meirelles pays much attention to depicting the character of Li’l Dice as formed on the fundament of the notions of violence, rape, revenge, anxiety, anger, and pressure developed in the favelas. If Li’l Dice makes a choice once, Rocket has to make many choices during his life because of choosing the peaceful career of a press photographer, which contradicts with the slums’ norms. Thus, the character of Rocket is even more realistic in comparison with Li’l Dice’s one because Rocket has to overcome life challenges every day like any other person who lives in a favela in the 1980s and who is not a member of a gang. Moreover, the audience is inclined to empathize with Rocket and to blame Li’l Dice as a real person because of the perfect cinematography.
The second criterion with the help of which it is possible to evaluate the film is the cinematography. Cinematography techniques used by Meirelles are based on the specific method of improvisation correlated with the idea of spontaneity. Thus, City of God‘s cinematography is based on achieving the special effect which can be referred to as ‘controlled spontaneity,’ and this effect “derives mostly from the technique of improvisation” and from the other filming methods which are used by Meirelles in order to “enhance the performance of amateur actors who lacked formal training. Through improvisation, the actors grasped the mechanism of developing a situation out of a proposed conflict, without being given the dialogue” (Shaw 62).
Nevertheless, Meirelles goes far beyond focusing on improvisation and spontaneity, and the dramatic technique is closely connected with spontaneity in order to produce the effect of the closely observed reality where real people act in real situations. The other cinematographic techniques used in the film, which contribute to creating the realistic picture, are lighting, photography, and work with shots and angles. The director provides the realist representation of observed reality with the help of putting the specific light accents on objects, portraying positive moments such as memories about childhood in bright colors and negative activities in gangs in rather aggressive dark colors. The prevailing tones are dark; the used shots help concentrate on the concrete objects and their parts in order to emphasize definite moments; these objects are often highlighted (Vieira 36). The predominant angles help demonstrate characters and objects from the unusual perspective contributing to the effect of presence and imitating the reportage manner, and this approach is significant to accentuate the plot’s details.
The realism of the film is also based on the plot’s features because the plot is developed to represent the story, which is the most authentic in its nature while speaking about the true life in favelas in the 1960s-1980s. Rafter and Brown state that “The City of God scrambles time to produce meanings that a linear plot cannot generate” (Rafter and Brown 182). Depicting the events, the authors of the film choose to jump from one character to another while focusing on different periods of time and various causes and consequences of the events. The narrative fragments provide the audience with the opportunity to conclude the film’s situations independently and with paying much attention to the concrete details which are too close to reality. The film about the lives of Li’l Dice and Rocket is open-ended, and this technique allows re-thinking of the main events depicted in the film (“City of God”). Furthermore, the film’s beginning is also non-traditional because it depicts chasing after a chicken, and this situation represents the favelas’ household realities. The plot is organized in such a way that interpretations cannot be dictated, and the audience focuses on its own vision of the film’s realism.
The problem is in the fact that many critics are inclined to evaluate the City of God as a film belonging to the gangster genre in spite of the fact that the film should be classified as a social and crime drama developed according to the principles of Realism in cinematography. The critics of the film state that the City of God promotes extreme violence, and moreover; the depicted realities are not true because of the obvious exaggeration (Rafter and Brown 181). The exaggerated violence observed in relations of the favelas’ gangs makes critics speak about the film as a gangster movie, which is far from reality. Nevertheless, it is more appropriate to classify the film as a social and crime drama and to evaluate it as the good example of Realism in cinematography because significant social problems are discussed in the film with references to the realistic plot and cinematographic techniques which are emphasized to represent the reliable and credible favelas’ realities observed in the 1960s-1980s.
City of God (2002) is the good example of the realistic film which can be evaluated with references to such criteria as the depiction of characters, cinematographic elements, and the aspects of the plot. To conclude about the film’s importance more clearly, it is necessary to refer to the compelling example presented in the film. Thus, the main characteristic feature of City of God is the focus on depicting the events closely to reality, and all the scenes of beatings, gangs’ conflicts, and killings are provided with extreme details. Such a detailed portrayal of injustice, racism, and violence makes the viewers focus on their interpretation. However, the extreme violence highlighted with the elements of lighting and photography effects does not contradict with the favelas’ realities and contributes to creating the realistic picture.
Works Cited
City of God. 2002. Video file. Web.
Rafter, Nicole, and Michelle Brown. Criminology Goes to the Movies: Crime Theory and Popular Culture. USA: NYU Press, 2011. Print.
Shaw, Deborah. Contemporary Latin American Cinema: Breaking into the Global Market. USA: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2007. Print.
Vieira, Else. City of God in Several Voices: Brazilian Social Cinema as Action. Nottingham: Critical, Cultural and Communications Press, 2005. Print.