City of God Review

Rating: 8/10 (16 October 2017)

*Spoiler Alert*
City of God, the erratic and fast-paced thrill ride that is as violent as it is coming of age. With a cast of characters that seemed so organic and believable that you confuse the story for their day-to- day reality. Throughout the film, I marveled at the techniques that the director and cinematographer used to amplify their messages. The use of Zooms, Long shots, Split-screen, Freeze frame, slow-motion, and lighting, just to name a few. These techniques made the film extremely visually stimulating and engaging, which coincided with the dark and gritty subject matter. It also has music that is reoccurring to add an emphasis on the culture and to juxtapose with the environment. An environment where the people need "God" the most, meaning: A city of death and violence.
A specific scene that encapsulates this film's tone, subject matter, and techniques is the "Lil Dice bathhouse scene." The bathhouse scene is so significant because of the direct combination of a child, sex, and murder. This scene emphasizes Lil Dice and his psychological development as a child, meaning he displays psychopathic tendencies. The scene also relies on technique to flesh out Lil Dice as dangerous, coupled with the narration to continue a string of narrative. The cinematography focuses on making the victims yelling out of focus (depth of field) to show a mental disregarding of life by Lil Dice. He then murders them, which leads to the mise en scène becoming emphasized. The lighting behind lil Dice is complete low-key, his figure completely disappears in the darkness (figuratively and literally). There is also a yellow-tinted lens used in the scene to set a glorification of killing.
Overall, City of God, is an extremely layered film that is defiantly worth a watch. It is violent but also has a meaning of passion through the main character. I highly recommend this film as a developmental and cinematically engaging journey. The only problems I had were more about the narrative and the films approach in gimmicky story-telling (Rocket and his camera), it felt contrived in the way that Rocket was omniscient.
4/5