The birth of a gangster

Rating: 9/10 (15 November 2010)

City of God's is a Brazilian turn on the crime film, Stylistically influenced by Goodfellas and Traffic it is one of the best crime films of this past decade.
The difference between City of God and Goodfellas is that City of God turns the gangster genre on its head. It strips to its bare essentials and gives the audience a very cathartic experience in doing so.
The movie is about a small shanty town in Brazil ironically called the City of God. It is a place of poverty and this invariably leads to crime since everyone is trying to earn a better living with more money rather than go the way of the fathers who are fisherman and the like.
In this town most children want to become gangsters. Some are driven to it like Knockout or others are just plain bad and love to do it like Litte Ze. And once you are in you are never heading back.
The film is told through the eyes of Rocket an aspiring photographer and one of the few people in the film that we say not engaging in crime. Rocket does all the normal teenagy things. he smoke pot, tries to lose his virginity and be creative in his spare time. One thing really going for him is he is always in the right place at the right time. For some reason he just observes the events as they unfold, as kids kill each other, as gangsters shoot and kill each other he just observes the carnage. At one point at the very end of the film does he finally show some emotion if only for a moment. It somehow adds to the whole thing because in the midst of so much violence there is no time for value judgements.
There are many scenes in the movie where kids pick up guns, kill others, do holdups snort cocaine and generally behave unlike other kids. There is one line in the film where Steak and fries tries to prove he is a man by saying he does the above specified. Knockout gives him a smile and pats him on the back. the smile is a very knowing one. Like these kids are doing these terrible things in a playful manner , like everything is a game. Despite the killing they are still children because they don't yet understand the consequences and repercussions of their actions.
City of God doesn't give answers or attempt to give answers for any of the character's actions because there simply aren't any. city of God merely observes and depicts. Much like Stanley Kubrick's film Full metal Jacket it tries to say that this is how it is. It just is.
City of God is a brilliant achievement in terms of acting, direction, photography and various other technical aspects. The lack of production value that a Hollywood production would give it add to its charm and make the story that much more richer and real. There is a tremendous energy on screen and the film is very colorful due to the clever use of the multitude of lenses. City of God is one of the decade's best!