board77

My son came to visit over the weekend and we watched a bunch of movies. (I try to take him sightseeing in the lovely place where I live, but he just won't go!) Several of the films were interesting, but the star of the show was definitely City of God. Has anyone seen it?

It's a Brazilian film about a truly terrifying slum - the kind where police don't go, and children carry guns. It's sort of the story of the rise of a crazy crime boss. Not exactly a fun romp, but excellent in so many ways. You know right away that you're in the hands of an expert - every shot is visually interesting, the characters fascinate, and the story grabs you and won't let go.

Would love to talk about it, but don't want to post spoilers for those who haven't seen it. Any takers?

I've heard about it (only good things, by the way) but I haven't seen it yet.

Didn't it also win a whole bunch of awards?

Heard of it too (and saw a trailer) but missed it at the cinema.

I encourage you both to rent it, if you can find a video store where it's available. Surely you can? I mean, I live in Durango, Colorado, a town of 15,000 souls, and they had it my video store. And it wasn't even the big video store downtown - it was the little one next to the Wal-Mart. (Yes, alas, we have one of those. But at least it didn't kill the downtown business district like it does in so many small towns. Sorry for the digression. I believe I'm developing adult ADD.)

It's pretty violent - don't know if that's an issue for either of you. But it is said to be based on a true story (which suggests that life in the Rio slums is truly horrifying), and it is very compelling.

Yep, it's on my "to see" list.
I don't mind violence, usually... when it's integral to the story. Although having said that, I was reluctant to see Kill Bill (gratuitous violence overkill) and when I finally did, I found it hilarious. :mrgreen:

Lately I find myself disenchanted with fiction (both in film and literature, but more in the latter) and tend to make a beeline for documentaries and/or essay-type writing. Apart from LotR, that is.

Actually, Kill Bill (1 & 2) was on our viewing list last weekend too. Like you, I was reluctant because of the reported violence - of which there was indeed plenty. But it was so stylized and cartoonish that somehow it didn't bother me. I really enjoyed them both.

I was also vastly entertained by my 20 year old son's newfound role of cineaste. "These films are, of course," he intoned, "Taratino's homage to the chop socky movies he loved as a child."

I saw City of God last summer on DVD. No, I did not have the cinema experience so I don't know if this spoiled the film for me.

I found it very raw and brutal for my taste. It wasn't so much the sight of violence (plenty of shooting in that film) but the thinking (or absence of it) behind the actions.

I can understand violence in Kill Bill because Tarantino does not claim that this is a true story and his excessive, overused and theatrical violence takes away the horror of the act. But in City of God I often had the impression that I was watching a documentary or a diary, a story that comes out of real life. So it was very shocking to see kids as young as 10 have a complete disregard of human life and to treat power games as lightly as a mere child's play.

Andri wrote:

I found it very raw and brutal for my taste. It wasn't so much the sight of violence (plenty of shooting in that film) but the thinking (or absence of it) behind the actions.

I think that was the point, actually. That there were these children in the slums of Rio with no access to opportunity, and whose only role models were gangsters. Feral almost.

Andri wrote:

I can understand violence in Kill Bill because Tarantino does not claim that this is a true story and his excessive, overused and theatrical violence takes away the horror of the act. But in City of God I often had the impression that I was watching a documentary or a diary, a story that comes out of real life. So it was very shocking to see kids as young as 10 have a complete disregard of human life and to treat power games as lightly as a mere child's play.

My understanding is that the film was based on a very real place and very real situations - even some real people. I think the filmmakers meant for you to be horrified because - well, it's horrifying. It's shocking to see 10 year olds shooting guns in a movie; it's even more shocking that they do it in real life.

I thought the chicken that escaped at the beginning was a sort of metaphor for Rocket.

If you ejoyed (well...maybe not the right word) City of God, then I recommend Carandiru. It's a film about a prison in Brazil...you haven't seen a prison like this ever before.


(IMDB says it's "The Dramatization of the Greatest Massacre of Prisoners in the World" ...true, but I didn't know about that when I watched the film, and it's not the reason to see it. The massacre is almost an epilogue. )