Rio de Janeiro in a new light

Rating: 7/10 (15 October 2017)

***SPOILER ALERT***
The City of God, directed by Fernando Meirelles, is a cinematically beautiful film with a harsh plot, told through the perspective of the main character, Rocket, that takes place in a suburb of Rio de Janeiro. The film begins years in the future and tells the story as a flashback, deviating from normality. By beginning the film in such a way, our interest is peaked, we want to understand why this man is stuck in the middle of this conflict. The use of a hand-held camera during action sequences, increases the suspense and creates the feeling that we're part of the film. Not only does it create suspense, but also disorientation in a scene, which seems to be the intended effect because we become more intrigued and confused—we want to figure out what is going on. The use of camera angles aim to invoke the feelings of anger and vulnerability, when Lil Zé was fulfilling his desire to kill, the low angle makes him look menacing making us feel fear and anger towards him—especially since he's shooting down at us. However, when Lil Zé is about to get shot, a higher angle shows him to be vulnerable at the moment. In just about every scene, there are either guns or drugs present that remind us that this is the root of the problem, drugs are their solutions to get out of poverty or gain power. However, this is everyone's downfall. Unfortunately, we even see Rocket turn to this "solution," but with no success. While all these kids are essentially criminals, the story developed around them makes us feel sympathetic and grow attached to them, we hope that they will survive and leave these impoverished neighborhoods.
Overall, this was a great film that can be hard to watch. It exposes the truths of what is going on in certain parts of Rio de Janeiro, not the kind that go on a postcard. This can sometimes be forgotten as we only see the beautiful and glorified neighborhoods in films. The children of these suburbs, at a very early age, are manipulated and are pushed into the drug trade—they feel like there is no other way of life. We become more aware and realize there are bigger problems in the world, some that we may not even realize.