Required Viewing for any Film Enthusiast

Rating: 8/10 (24 June 2004)

"City of God" is clearly one of the most aesthetically complex and viscerally charged motion pictures ever made. There are many scenes here for students of film to take great joy in simply in terms of aesthetics. The cinematography, editing, and pacing is inventive, mind-blowing and lovingly inspired by the best work of Scorsese. I could go on and on about the opening "chicken run" sequence, "Shaggy's" death scene, the disco shoot-out, or any number of other "WOW" scenes of pure cinematic adrenaline.
It's this kind of movie magic that breathes life into the myth of the "greatest film of all time."
But be warned, as much as this film can be "enjoyed", it is clearly far from the myth it jolts to life with its "look, mom, no hands" style of film-making. It's also highly disturbing, more so than anything Scorsese has done. One sequence involving a child who couldn't be older than ten having to shoot another child who looks to be half his age as some sort of gang initiation is so slickly done I felt like I was watching a snuff film. Based on a true story about Brazilian slum dwellers and the crime waves overtaking the town, "City of God" is an extremely hard pill to swallow as it wallows in violence, offers up a hearty dose of moral ambiguity, an almost pornographic take on the criminals it depicts, and leaves the viewer with no real solution or any sign of hope that this cycle can ever conceivably come to an end. The film seems to be saying that the only way to over-come such poverty and crime is to document it (witness our supposed hero who becomes a photographer). With its ultra-slick and highly addictive presentation, the film dupes unsuspecting viewers into witnessing all the depravity as well.