City of God (2002)

Cidade de Deus (2002)

Director : Fernando Meirelles.
Genere : Crime.
Cast : Alexandre Rodrigues, Leandro Firmino, Alice Braga.
Rating : Master piece

City of God tells the story from the poverty sunken slums of Rio de Janeiro. Rio de Janeiro is actually a battle field; survival comes with two choices, be a part of the crime element or let consumed by it. Li'l Zé (Leandro Firmino)growth from an angry child to a trigger happy, blood thirsty warlord give a brief but strong exposure to the crime world of Cidade de Deus. Rocket (Alexandre Rodrigues) never expected anything from this slum, but his ticket to a better life came from the same battle field. He was offered a very risky job of taking pictures of the gangs and their activities by a newspaper. His dream of becoming a photographer and a better life depends on this performance. City of god is intense with heartless killings, blood trials, rape, and gang war all run and maintained by kids or mere teenagers. Throughout the story, poverty stands out as a reality and advocates for much of the happenings with unbelievable honesty. Is the pain of poverty strong enough to decay the deep-rooted humanity and romanticism even from a child’s sole, or is it just a reflection of the society.
City of god is a perfect package comes with stunning performance, fantastic visuals, and a well formatted screenplay. Director Fernando Meirelles’s approach with style and control is perfectly backed by the cinematographer César Charlone. Bráulio Mantovani’s work with the screenplay enables the smooth navigation between 60’s to 80’s through 70’s. But the real claps goes to the actors, mostly untrained kids, who takes us to a world of ultimate crime and mischief are the real heroes of this true story.