Authentic and indelible

Rating: 9/10 (29 December 2005)

(Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon.)
This Brazilian Portuguese language film set in the slums of Rio de Janeiro, the so-called "City of God," is a mesmerizing coming of age gangsta drama second to none you'll ever see. At the same time it is a tale of redemption and the triumph of relative good over relative evil.
Representing evil is the psychopathic L'il Dice/L'il Zé (Douglas Silva/Leandro Firmino da Hora), who kills people just for the joy it gives him. Representing the good is the story's narrator, Rocket (Alexandre Rodrigues), who will grow out of the slum to become a newspaper photographer. And representing something in between is the charismatic Benny (Phellipe Haagensen). The acting is excellent, including that by the "runts," actual kids from the City of God; but what carries the film is sharp direction by Fernando Meirelles from an outstanding script by Braulio Mantovani from a novel by Paulos Lins.
I think Hollywood directors ought to note well that it is the authentic realism of the film as seen from within the City of God by one of its own that makes this such a compelling experience for the audience. None of this can be faked. True, the story is a bit romanticized as a (very talented) kid might tell it to his friends, but that is all the better because the world view of those kids is part of what makes this film so effective. Additionally, all the little side stories: the woman at the newspaper who takes Rocket home with her for, shall we say, personal reasons; the story of the girl Rocket loves; the desire of the "runts' to be men, etc., add layers of genuineness that also can not be faked or dreamed up by any filmland script writer. These things have to be lived.
Last time I looked Cidade de Deus was rated #17 at IMDb, ahead of hundreds of great films. There's not much I can add to that. Is the film over-rated? I think so, and I think it will fall in the standings as time goes by. Good recent films tend to get a lot of attention, and then reach their level after some years have passed and they can be evaluated more objectively. Regardless, this is a watermark film for the Brazilian cinema and especially for director Fernando Meirelles who because of it rocketed from obscurity to world-wide fame almost overnight.