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What has the term 'film realism' come to mean in the age of reality TV, digital cameras and fiction that adopts the structural strategies of documentaries? These thoughts spring to mind upon viewing City of God, a film that belongs to a certain contemporary breed of film-making whose idea of realism is relentless handheld camera work, in-your-face violence and pornographic drug consumption, to name but a few of the narrative and stylistic elements.
Realism has always been a contentious issue in the arts, and these days it seems almost irrelevant to stew on it when everything only seems to be real when it's captured by a camera. City of God tries to blur the line between real life and fiction by using 'real people' from the 'real slum' where the action is set (the 'favela' Cidade de Deus) and it does that with so much hunger that the result looks quite convincing, even though it's only a mirage. Unfortunately, it dissipates when you try to touch on anything solid. It's all very 'keepin' it real', a la Puff Daddy.
The film unravels as a flashback narrative told by Rocket (Alexandre Rodrigues), a slum dweller-cum-photographer (he's the alter-ego of the author who wrote the book on which the film is based, Paulo Lins). He recounts the lives of two gangsters (Lil' Ze - played by Leandro Firmino da Hora - and his best mate, the soft-hearted Benny - why their names have been translated to English is somewhat obscure), from their beginnings as petty criminals sometime in the 60s to the apotheosis of the gun-machine nightmare of the late 70s/early 80s when Lil' Zé (Benny gets killed just after the middle of the film) confronts a rival drug gang led by Carrot.
The truth is, no matter how energetic and professionally made City of God is, with all of its ready-made artiness, it reeks of a swindle (perhaps that's the idea). Its MTV-style editing pace and frantic camera work has by halfway through the film destroyed any possibility of engagement with the narrative and the characters. It's made to amaze and entertain, not to provoke thought. The makers say the style was designed to convey the paranoia of the cocaine-fuelled tension that marks the lives of those hoodlums, but frankly, that's the biggest cliché in the world. The whole thing is designed to look 'cool' (hence the numerous comparisons to Tarantino) but it never takes the viewer anywhere near the kernel of the tragedy that generated that hellish world which, by the way, we never quite get a picture of (if only the camera could stay fixed for a while).
Oddly, despite all the action and fierceness of some scenes (like the truly harrowing sequence when a small boy gets gunned down by one of his peers), it generally lacks pathos because it concentrates too much on the presentation of the 'product' (Meirelles' credentials as a director of commercials show through all along). Perhaps the reason why it is so popular is that in the end the film is a middle-class roller coaster ride in someone else's purgatory, avoiding the critical distanciation that is blatantly absent - not to mention contextualisation. The film's trajectory and success 'in real life' has become its story. Hector Babenco's Pixote (1982) remains undefeated as the one that best showed the world the cruel reality of being a poor child in the Brazilian underbelly.
Bravado filmmaking? Yes. A masterpiece? Never.
Reviewed by Antonio Pasolini
Reader comments about City of God (Cidade de Deus)
Sameer Padania (Email address withheld) writes:
Have to agree, Antonio - welcome dissent. It's curiously unengaging, isn't it?
gautam chintamani (gautam510@yahoo.com) writes:
I do agree with you Antonio. Cidade de Deus is so high on technique that by the end of it one wonders if it's actually based on a true story! it's kick ass but fails to make one feel anything for the characters
Jordan (Email address withheld) writes:
I have to disagree. I find it impossible to believe that anyone could walk out of that film without having been emotionally impacted. Perhaps it is because, coming from a generation that has grown up with MTV, I know how to prevent a shakey camera from distracting me from a story. Either way, I found the film poignant and disturbing, and I found myself sympathising with each character (even with the sociopathic Little Ze once or twice).
Adeel Safdar (Email address withheld) writes:
I thought this film was cinema at its best. I loved the MTV style film-making and I felt that the narrative and plot were very engaging. It kept me gripped throughout. I feel that it would've lacked something, but the lilttle twist with the boy called Otto or something, who killed Knockabout Ned in the end was shocking and then The Runts taking over was plausible yet satirical.
I'm a big fan of Hip-Hop music, this is a film that demonstrates Hip-Hop without the Hip-Hop, if you catch my drift. It had guns, drugs, power-hungry individuals and a community with no control or respect for the law, its about survival of the fittest. I truly loved it.
Ladis Beeharry (Email address withheld) writes:
I thought this film was shocking, entertaining, sad, horrible & captivating all at the same time. I don't agree it doesn't stimulate thought, in the contrary it not only stimulates thought but the desire to go out there & find out even more about the shanty towns.
The soundstrack, dialogue, screenpaly are fantastically crude. Far from the usual sytlish gangster life which films tend to portray nowadays, we see the reality children have to deal with every day; how many of us could survive in the City of God? Not many I'm sure.
JC (imbakan_ko@yahoo.com) writes:
So you gripe about its MTV style editing and stuff. But honestly, it could it have really been a part of its essence, sort of a'breaking free' from the traditional film making way. I saw this film along with a rather less-than-mediocre film with my friends on this certain Filmfest with a tremendously great lineup, and it did leave us hanging in our seats.
but then again, we are MTV's cherished generation.
alex woods (Email address withheld) writes:
i have to disagree with 'Antonio', im am one of what some have dubbed 'the mtv generation' but i have always grown up with great movies because of my two older brothers, the shaking camera i felt only added to the urban feel of the movie,anybody who can say that that movie made u feel nothing from the camera is either a robot or lying.
Yanna (Email address withheld) writes:
Maybe reading the book could help: Paulo Lins gives us with Cidade de Deus the Brazilian new novel (Postmodernism adscription, by the way): showing and not telling. What you dennounce as a kind of "moral lack" --I think, just apparently: the construction of "Rocket" (Busca-pé)as a hero gives an exit to this oppressive hell world of the favela, but he getus to be protagonist only in the film-- is a sign of our times... Asmuch as MTV-poyesis (:
Do we really need someone (in art!) pointing out what is evil? Maybe the reader has to complete the work... Because the lesson of social realism left as in the purification of "the good side".
I make my undergraduated students read the novel and watch the film,by the way. MTV generation does not find it unethic...
Fabio (fabiogaucho2@terra.com.br) writes:
Here in Brazil the film was quite controversial. Even though it is probably Brazil's biggest box-office success, (except for children's movies of the 80s - go figure) many people disliked the way it was made, highly stylistical and more concerned with action than with showing reality. Can't argue with that.
Anthony Frank (Email address withheld) writes:
When considering gritty realism in cinema, classic films such as The French Connection, Das Boot, Five Easy Pieces, Aguirre Wrath of God, and some of John Cassavettes films come to my mind to name a few. I am amazed and enthralled by how effectively subtle and powerful these films are at achieving "substance over style."
Antonio, you make some great points, but I don't think that it's fair to judge City of God according to the same criteria as those films or say a film like Pixote. Although the subject matter is similar, City of God obviously had a much different vision in mind...one aimed at utilizing a great deal of style to highlight a very real and horrifying social problem.
I found this film to be nothing less than extraordinary. A rare and near perfectly realized balance between style and substance.
Sure, the director's stylistic chops and a keen sense of "coolness" are constantly on display, but through a unique blend of striking visuals, camera movement (maybe a tad excessive for some), seamless non-linear story-telling, and a "tough as nails" groovy soundtrack.
What makes this film so memorable and so different from other stylistic endeavors, is that these aesthetic components do not detract from the slowly-unfolding beautifully-crafted story, richly drawn characters, heart-wrenching emotional content, and uncompromising social consciousness that pervades throughout. On the contrary, I think they only add to the expansive, epic nature of the film.
I also tend to be critical of the MTV generation (even though I'm a part of it!) but I got to give it up for them (us!) on this one. - A+
Katherine (Email address withheld) writes:
I'm not a hip hop fan, nor do I watch MTV but I rate this film highly.
This film shows more effectively than any moralising the sheer futility of drugs and violence. That it happens to be cool owes more to a fantastic soundtrack than anything else.
Assam (Email address withheld) writes:
The film shows rather than moralises and allows the viewer to form his/her opinion without dogma, refreshing and sobering, nice soundtrack and visuals too!! Couldn't disappoint if it tried.
Estercita (Email address withheld) writes:
Antonio, while you have some great points concerning the MTV/POP stylized way of making the film, I still beleive that the film was able to provoke thought and to really impact the viewers. I have to agree with Jordan on this issue.
Nevertheless I stongly agree that: "Babenco's Pixote (1982) remains undefeated as the one that best showed the world the cruel reality of being a poor child in the Brazilian underbelly."
Pixote is an extremely intense film, and I think it shocked me a lot more than City of God
Walkiria Sandak (Email address withheld) writes:
É chocante se deparar com a realidade. É triste, cruel e impiedoso, porem há uma certa ternura narrativa. Talvez seja o que nos prenda ao filme, apesar da violencia os personagens de u modo ou de outro nos cativam. É um filme realista que marca uma época, simplismente perfeito. Parabéns Fernando Meirelles.
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