City of God

Violence can happen at any moment in the favella. The movie (filmed around 2002) introduces us into the drug wars of the City of God from the 1960s to the 1980s. The gangs, drugs and the everyday life are shown by following Rocket’s life and witnessing his evolution from a child to a photo journalist. Rocket’s personal biography along with his telling of the stories of drug dealers, family members, and just regular people of the city help orient the audience to what is going on in the favella.

Many people die every day in the City. This movie bears witness to this common place violence. Poverty is universal in the favella, even the drug lords live in decrepit houses with concrete floors and walls. Children totting guns, and massive street fights against rival gangs and police does not seem to come from real life as opposed to the gory imagination of an ambitious film director. Statistics pop out when reading about life in the poor side of Rio. Things are better now the articles say. In the 1980s 40 people were murdered a day, now 12 or 14. Also, since the camera films the life of Little Ze we are going to be subject to more bloodshed than normal. He is a remorseless killer with a good business sense. He wants power in one of the most violent places on Earth, and in order to get this a lot of people are going to die. At the end of the movie TV clips are shown of the real Knockout Ned, and the comparisons between that and the cinematic version are incredibly close. This movie looks genuine. However, I don’t think the most accurate way to get a view of life in the favella is of the personal testimonial of some British tourist who gets lost.
This video shows a lot though. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3TLm0ubeZM

The favella and the outside world both have their rich and poor. Wealth is shown through gold jewelry and nice clothes in the favella. The ability that each person has in accumulating guns, drugs, and power determine where someone stands in the class structure. Outside this world being rich is the same as being rich anywhere else. This class structure is shown at all the successful business men in the hotel with their wives, girlfriends, or prostitutes. The same trappings of success are there as everywhere else. The other side of the class structure is the hotel workers, fish salesman, and truck robbers of the town. In the countryside besides a few business men or tourists, people are poor and similar in economic class. There is wealth outside the favella, and the class structure is broken down the same way there as anywhere else in the world (but with a lower GDP) There is wealth in the favella but it belongs only to the drug lords.

This film is shot in a slick way. It is done beautifully. The movie has good music, and is done in a hip way that gives it a style of a Tarintino movie. So here lies the trouble. Making a movie about a favella in the actual heart of the favella is going to be next to impossible. Houses are stacked on houses balanced precariously on the side of a hill. This is not the easiest place to put a film crew who wants to portray a way of life in both an accurate but also aesthetic way. So the film crew films, possibly, in the less favellaish, more open spaces. When I witnessed a brief clip on youtube of a gun battle between police and people in the favalla I saw something different than in the movie. I saw people jumping off of roofs, hiding and emerging from ledges and stairwells. The cameraman must have had tremendous difficulty capturing the moment. In the movie the violence takes place on a flatter surface. But who cares? The life of people is shown in an accurate way, even if the movie films more on areas that are more conducive to camera crews. The favella is more dense and cramped than shown in the movie. But it does give a sense of what it is like there. The countryside is in certain pockets thick with vegetation (as rainforests tend to be). The people of the country live in a barren area marked with homes reminiscent of the suburb with its repetitious construction. There are jungles here and there, but the rural folk live mostly in a dusty, poor world.