City Of God

City of God, a searing, violent look at gangs in the notorious favelas, or slums outside Rio. The City of God housing project is one of the more notorious ones, and the events depicted in the movie, based on the novel by Paulo Lins and adapted by Braulio Mantovani , are all based on a true story. City of God takes place over fifteen years, and weaves together a myriad of interconnected stories to give a complex, multilayered look at life in the slums, and the bleakness and hope that arises from it. The two main characters are Rocket (Alexandre Rodrigues, Palace II) and Lil' Ze (Firmino da Hora), two people that live close to each other but are complete opposites. Rocket narrates City of God, and according to him, the story of the slum is the story of some of its inhabitants.
Rocket wants to be a photographer. He sees this as his way out of the slums. The City of God is his home, but it's like he stands apart. He hangs with the hippie crowd, and the people around him know he is harmless. Lil' Ze is the exact opposite.Ever since he was a child, he wanted total control, and over the years ruthlessly killed his way to the top.
He doesn't want the gang members stealing from slum residents, but to get on the wrong side of his temper is usually fatal. His childhood friend Benny is the only voice of reason in Ze's organization.



The breathtaking opening sequence sets the overall theme of the movie, as the main character Rocket finds himself literally caught in a standoff – old comrades from the Cidade de Deus slums where he grew up on one side, the state police on the other. Rocket grew up in the favela ("slum") in the 1960s, but always remained on the fringes of criminal activity. He sees his brother Goose , part of a legendary gang called the “Tender Trio” along with partners in crime Shaggy and Clipper , lose his life over menial street crime. Instead, Rocket concentrates on school as best he can while growing up in the ghetto, following more carefree pursuits like his crush on the gorgeous Angelica and smoking the occasional joint with friends. Moving into the 70s, Rocket remains on the fringes of crime, hanging out with others that are involved in the rampant drug trade, but never becoming directly involved himself. Instead, he focuses on his dream of becoming a photographer, working odd jobs in order to earn enough cash to purchase his own first-rate equipment.



Such noble pursuits are rare in the City of God, however, as most boys grow up idolizing the drug dealers and hoodlums that control the area. The prime example of this is Li’l Dice (Douglas Silva), a boy who followed the Tender Trio around like a mascot. With a quick temper and unmatched bloodlust, by the time he is eighteen he is running a large part of the City of God. Rechristening himself Li’l Zé , he teams up with best friend Benny and sets his sights on taking over the drug trade in the entire ghetto. This inevitably leads to clashes with other drug dealers, as they battle for turf. Li’l Zé's first reaction to any resistance is to kill everyone who opposes them. But Benny is the mild-mannered partner, the only one who can calm his pal. Eventually tension begins to build even between the two friends, as Benny drifts away from a life of crime and falls in love with Angelica.



For a movie so brutal, very little of the violence is directly shown. There isn’t a lot in the way of blood and gore. But it in no way lessens the impact. The amazing thing is how natural it all is, how characters don’t seem to even give it a second thought. Even Benny, the one hood with a heart in the entire story, utilizes gunplay and violence when needed. He uses it sparingly in comparison to someone like Li’l Zé, but even so called “good guys” are drawn toward it at some point. Rocket even takes a gun at one point in time with plans to knock off a local bus driver for cash. Plans like this are ordinary to the teenagers in the city, even ones who don’t consider themselves criminals. The violence is particularly hard to stomach when it involves kids, which is quite often. And by “kids” I don’t mean teenagers, I mean actual kids. As in nine or ten year-olds toting guns and shooting former playmates. I’ve also seen complaints about the high body count, with the endless barrage of killings and the complete lack of caring at the deaths. Again, I think such critics are completely missing the point. It’s _supposed_ to get this reaction out of you. The fact that kids, teenagers and others are executed and nobody seems to care is one of the key statements of the film. It reiterates the fact that these killings are all too common and that it’s a vicious cycle taking place – one kid is brutally murdered, another steps right in to take his place. There’s no time to stop and mourn or analyze why it happened. The drug trade and violence continues.


The film received four Academy Award nominations in 2004: Best Cinematography (César Charlone), Best Directing (Meirelles), Best Editing (Daniel Rezende) and Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay) (Mantovani). Before that, in 2003 it had been chosen to be Brazil's runner for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, but it was not nominated to be one of the five finalists.

Meirelles and Lund went on to create the City of Men TV series and film City of Men, which share some of the actors (notably leads Douglas Silva and Darlan Cunha) and their setting with City of God.



The performances are astonishing as they are authentic, understandably, as the child actors were recruited from the favela streets in which the film is set, avoiding the gloss of stage school. Meirelles and co-director Katia Lund worked for eight months prior to shooting, creating the various episodes through a series of improvisational workshops. The results are incredible – one harrowing, brilliantly acted scene in particular involves a rising group of vicious child gangsters, who give one of their even younger victims the choice of being shot “in the hand or in the foot” in one of the most disturbing scenes in recent years that Hollywood or Europe would shy away from. We’re really not used to seeing children wielding guns as brutal killers and this film really hammers that home.



The film also excels in technical areas. Cesar Charlone's grainy, sun-drenched camerawork is reminiscent of 'Traffic', while Daniel Rezende's stunning, hyper-kinetic editing only occasionally distracts from the film's flow. We see a speeded-up history of an apartment that’s used as a drug base, or a violent confrontation that explodes under the strobe-effects of a nightclub and really artistic freeze frame shots as the characters are introduced.

City of God is a Brilliant film! One of the best I’ve ever had the experienced watching .

Central Station is the 1998 drama film set in Brazil. The main language in this film Is Portuguese.The film’s story arch depends almost entirely upon the performances of two people, one young and one old, one male and one female. Vinícius de Oliveira, is a real breakthrough in his performance. I found that he was discovered f by director Walter Salles in an airport, while shining shoes. He plays the part of Josué with a real life simplicity to his nature. Much like Oliveira himself, Josué is a floater tossed here and there by the impersonal currents of Rio de Janeiro. In the film , Josué had a mother to care, and look out, for him, but in a single moment she died. Somewhere, in a distant place far off to the south, Josué has a father whom he's never known, never met.
The only person that Josué can depend on, not that either of them know it, is Dora played by Fernanda Montenegro.

The partner in crime for Central Station, Dora has lost patience with humanity, she's disconnected with society and is very bitter towards it. In Rio's main station,Dora writes communications dictated by an illiterate population. She only does this to make ends meet, having retired from teaching, and frankly Dora couldn't care less whether her actions make or break lives. At home, if a flat empty of love, devoid of affection, can be called home, Dora cackles with friend Irene at the expense of poor unfortunates. That's how little her existence touches on the finer things, the fireworks and private smiles, that lift the spirits of those very same customers.
So how do these two meet? Through circumstance and rude chance, courtesy of a script that understands the actions and reactions of folk under stress. Contained within the lines and scenes is this knowledge, implicit at any particular instant, explicit when taken as the sum of all that has occurred.

For Central Station, it's the journey, whether physical or emotional that counts at the end you've learnt a tiny bit more about who you are as a person. As the tale unfolds it becomes transparently clear that one doesn't learn through introspective analysis, persistent understanding comes through doing and experiences shared. So while Josué and Dora provide this lesson's context, with notable excellence, they aren't essential to the message itself that any citizen of Rio could do as well.

Yet for all of her experience, young Oliveira matches Montenegro. He has a freshness, a way of talking directly that is pure adolescence; Oliveira is sophisticated enough to lie yet the questions that he poses are blunt. Throughout Central Station, as the pair travel a landscape excpetionally photographed by Walter Carvalho, such observations cause Dora real trouble. In the hands of Salles, the result is a film that almost restores your faith in humanity.

Speaking of faith, a part of Central Station that may resonate more strongly with the domestic Brazilian audience is its treatment of religion. The beliefs that permeate the culture and people also seep from Salles' picture thoroughly. Everywhere the camera looks there are symbols, declarations of penance, salesmen taking advantage of the devout, aspects of prayer, hope, desire, anything to escape the ghetto. Without realising it Dora and Josué become caught in their own odyssey.

"Tsotsi " Gavin Hood ( 2005)

Tsotsi is the Oscar winner for Best Foreign Film in 2005, The film is set in a slum of Johannesburg, South Africa, and the focus is on a small group of petty criminals, of which Tsotsi (Presley Chweneyagae) is the unofficial leader. He is a killer, and a mystery even to his closest friends. Even his name is unknown to them. Tsotsi simply means Thug . But after a brutal night of crime, one of his friends challenges him, saying something which sets Tsotsi into a rage. Brutally beating up his friend, Tsotsi flees to an extremely wealthy neighborhood, where he spontaneously steals a rich woman's car, shooting her and driving off into the darkness. The full story which is to be told becomes clear when Tsotsi realizes there is an infant boy in the back seat. This infant boy will forever change this hardened killer.



As with many great films, there are different ideas one can pull out of it. A major spiritual theme that will be addressed in this review is the cycle of parenting. Tsotsi himself becomes a vague sort of parent as he attempts to care for this child that he has kidnapped. During the film we see a healthy set of parents grieving and searching for their missing baby, a loving mother looking after her own infant even as Tsotsi forces her to feed his pilfered child, and we see the parents that Tsotsi fled from as a young boy, his mother dying of AIDS and his father an abusive drunk.

Again, there is so much more to this film than just its intense story, which leaves the viewer gasping and praying for the safety of this poor innocent baby, as well as for the safety of this loveless killer that we’ve somehow become endeared to. One reason the viewer comes to sympathize with Tsotsi’s plight is that he was neglected and run out of his own home. He lost his loving mother and was traumatized by his father. Without the nurturing of a parent, we see how this young man (whose age is left purposefully vague, but whose gun makes him as old as he needs to be), could become the cold-blooded killer that he is. And we also see how important the profound love of parent for child can be when the assaulted couple pushes the police to find their son.

We see this idea of the importance of nurture played out in Tsotsi. When our protagonist is placed into a position he cannot run away from, when he is supposed to become a parent but never had any quality parents himself, Tsotsi is forced to try to rebuild and repair the cycle of parenting that he had broken free of in his own life. And this is the seed of change for him. No longer can he kill without feeling, because he has felt what it is to be needed by someone, and to be responsible for anothers survival. When Tsotsi must become a father, all of the hurt he had stifled resurfaces and he begins the process of healing needed to confront the demons that his own drunk and violent father had sewn in him.

In Tsotsi world, anything can happen. No one is safe from the violence that is going on all around them. Director Gavin Hood paints a real world picture in this sense, and that element is what keeps one on the edge of their seat. Just like in reality, the good guy may not always win, and the helpless child may not be protected. These are the rough and tumble streets that Tsotsi raised himself on. He did not have a father who brought him up in the knowledge of right and wrong. In that sense he is much like our own American culture today which has (in many instances) rejected God and lost the understanding of what is right and what is wrong. Without the caring and nurture of parents, whether heavenly or earthly, we simply will fall short. When Tsotsi himself is placed in the role of a parent. His awakening is both thrilling and heartbreaking to watch.

Amores Perros - Alejandro González Iñárritu (2000 )

Amores Perros is a a Mexican film by director Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu . The film has attained much critical acclaim and by some it is described as the “Mexican Pulp Fiction”. The film revolves around three interconnected stories about the different strata of life in Mexico City that all resolve with a fatal car accident. Octavio is trying to raise enough money to run away with his sister-in-law, and decides to enter his dog Cofi into the world of dog fighting. After a dogfight goes bad, Octavio flees in his car, running a red light and causing the accident. Daniel and Valeria's new-found bliss is prematurely ended when she loses her leg in the accident. El Chivo is a homeless man who cares for stray dogs and is there to witness the collision. Amores Perros was nominated for the Oscar for Best Forgein Language FIlm in 2000 and won the Ariel Award for Best picture from the Mexican Academy of Film.



Amores Perros is an overlapping consideration of the crises of love as it wavers in and out of quality of life, in both the gutters and penthouses of Mexico City. More striking on the surface is how that theme is explored metaphorically through the egregious mistreatment and abuse of all species of dogs, the double entendre "bitches" of the title. Their graphic deaths and dismemberments were very brutal and realistic .. This illustrates the "canine actors" at work and demonstrates the methods of bloodying them without actually hurting them. The most disturbing of the violent animal scenes take place in the first story that paints a bleak picture of the life of a young man, Octavio, who is drawn to the culture of dog-fighting rings. Octavio's dream is to escape the world of poverty and his abusive brother and rescue not only himself, but also his sister-in-law, Susana, with whom he has fallen hopelessly in love. His only hope of raising the money for the escape is to fight his dog, Cofi, a Rottweiler who he discovers is a champion, fighting dog.

I found the story of El Civo to be the most interesting of all. El Chivo's story intertwines with the others at the scene of the fateful car accident. His rescue of Octavio's dog, Cofi, sets the stage for his tale of woe. In several scenes, Cofi appears injured and his wounds bandaged by El Chivo. The trainer explains in the video that the dog is a veteran of many television productions and trained to lie still, wear make-up and do a great many behaviors. The actor mentions in the video that he spent several weeks in pre-training with the dogs to develop the bond that El Chivo has for his dogs. However, El Chivo is not what he appears to be and his history reveals a complex man who has better relationships with his canine family than with his human family.