City of God

 

Since we now are a quarter through the 21st decade I heard some discussion on the best movies of the 21st decade so far and I want to chime in my pick for number one: Cidade de Deus is a 2002 released movie covering three decades in the favela of Rio de Janeiro called the same as the title of the movie and a gang war, that ended up breaking out there.

By the look of it, one could say: “It is just Goodfellas, but set in Rio, a multidecade spanning portrait of a criminal structure evolving and then collapsing based on a true story. Even if it is done well, what makes it special and not stand in the shadows of well established Hollywood classics?” First and foremost: Yes it is done that well, full of stylistic devices that never sacrifice on substance, great acting, great writing. Crafted with easily as much skill as the classics of that genre. But still there are unique and maybe even revolutionary aspects that elevate it above nearly every other crime movie I have seen.

 

Most of those aspects could be summarised by the idea of world design, before I get to that tho: There is one small point that also is unique and that is the children. Children in the world of City of God have easy and quick access to the life of crime, it is sold to them as one of their best perspectives to make a living and therefore, you will see children murder, doing drugs and getting murdered left and right as if it was the most normal thing. That is portrayed in such a nuanced and multifaceted light that alone, what this shows about humankind and nature is enough to justify calling this a masterpiece. It also is a reason, why it is fair, not being able to stomach it I should mention. However if you feel the strength to confront this kind of issue, City of God to me feels like the kind of movie where child violence is not exploitative or “just a gimmick”, it is full of young characters that go through their own journeys of being thrown in the place that they were thrown in.

 

Speaking of that place, I heard some critiques of the movie reducing the Cidade de Deus, just to a criminal haven of misery, to which I can only say, it is always a legitimate criticism and I would consider that as a kind of miseryporn and orientalism on “the third world”. Personally I just experienced the movie opposite to that. I went into the child violence part, because it is that shocking and haunting, but now I want to encourage everyone to look beyond that, because aside from the based on a true story gangwar and even aside from the coming of age drama in between Cidade de Deues brings a world to the screen where every small side character gets their backstory every relationship always stands in relation to another relationship and small minute day to day life is treated with the same care and authenticity as the big plot movements. To all this horror and shock, there is a contrast, a humanity and a beauty to the community there that says life is beautiful no matter the circumstances you were born in. As a matter of fact, going into a scene you can rarely really tell if it is going to be the former or the later, often it is both anyways. It is hard to explain how exactly they managed to pull something off effortlessly that even great movies struggle with. It is immersion, it is detail overload, it is the feeling of deeply being integrated into a community even though you are just watching them on a screen. It is like the movie is telling a new story every minute and the complexity of emotions go from joy, over melancholia and bitterness to rage as effortlessly you won’t even realise the shift…

 

I think I have made my point within that review format well enough, past that point I could just write an academic paper on the world of Cidade de Deus, if you are seeking out more critical voices, I found the ones I was referring to earlier in the context of the “10 years later documentary”. As of now, I haven’t seen the documentary itself, but the points I read, read to me more as criticism of the world we are living in and how the movie did not change this world enough rather than criticism of the movie itself, maybe also the production, but that seems to sided and complicated from what I can tell. Seek out those criticisms, I think there were good points and it actually helps to reflect on the world Cidade de Deues portais. I just am too biased in favor of the movie to be a fair source on that aspect.

 

Short: This is my favorite movie of this century so far.