A cruel portrait

Rating: 9/10 (26 December 2019)

"City of God" is an icon of Brazilian cinema, a film that breaks the standards and limits of its culture and reaches a level of few in Brazilian culture, "City of God" is a film of the highest visual, technical and artistic quality, A spectacular movie.
With a script by Braulio Mantovani, the long story tells, in the foreground, the story of buscapé, a boy who lives in one of the most violent neighborhoods in Rio de Janeiro who dreams of being photographed for fear of becoming a bandit, but over the course of the work we realize that the plot is bigger than that, because we are told the story of the neighborhood itself, the "City of God", its story is told in several narrative lines that circulate between the 60s and 80s, but always in a chronological order, the presentation of various characters can be confusing, but their script has its own meaning, which is above all developing reality, bad guys, innocents, cops, corruption, workers and upper-class people who circulate and live in the city of god circuit, we have a central narrator who leads us through all this meander, in the best scorsese style, an important thread that ties everything together.
The feeling of insecurity and uncertainty is constant, where mourning needs to be fast and revenge suppressed, hatred is silent and the population is oppressed, there are several concepts addressed by Fernando Meirelles's work that drives neutrally and at the same time full of sentimentality that transports the viewer through a bad feeling thanks to its impeccable direction.
"City of God" has an exquisite technique, director Fernando Meireles, does not create anything new, uses a series of visual techniques already well-established, this feat has already been recognized by directors such as Spielberg and Scorsese, the latter of which his film Drinking from many inspirations, Fernando uses his camera almost as a character, the Brazilian director rotates his camera, makes plongée and against plongée, shoots open, closed angles, does not have a directional linearity, but what is done on screen is executed very closely. quality, as well as its beautiful photography that changes its tone over the years and its music playlist that combines and talks with the film absolutely in every scene, other points such as costume and stage composition also deserve to be praised.
The cast of actors is phenomenal, although the vast majority of the actors themselves have little experience, it contributes to a more emotional and lived performance, which faces their characters with little technique but very willingly.
"City of God", for a spectacular film that flirts with visual and technical perfection, with artistic and visual concepts combined with a crude and cruel script, which is the same complex and simple rhythm, Fernando Meirelles film is a milestone of national cinema and still alive and charming. NOTE: 9.5 / 10