Review: City of God

This was a powerful movie. It is a bit too gritty and realistic for my taste, but it was well done nonetheless. This is a Brazilian film, so it is not for those who do not like foreign films or subtitles. It is a story about a journalist/photographer who grew up in the slums of Brazil and witnesses his hometown reshaped by drugs, hoodlums, gangs and ultimately a massive gang war. I liked the way the story was told. Each section of the story was supplemented by a history of the character which explained each character's motivations and perspective. This detailed insight into each character's life allowed us to relate to or at least understand the motivation behind each person's actions. Almost every main character was given significant depth and each interaction was believably human and often frighteningly real. The feeling that these characters are driven by very primitive emotion resonated throughout the film and was reinforced by the barren, harsh, third-world setting where everyone and everything struggles. The simplicity of the film highlights human nature in its survival state, where every character is either fighting or fleeing from someone or something. There is plenty of violence and death, but the most powerful scenes are the ones that forces us to accept that each character is motivated by a kill-or-be-killed world that seems to be free from moral standards. In the City of God, even children commit serious crime and acts of violence, mimicking their elder hoodlum role models. In a way all of the characters in the film are children and although they find power in numbers and are fortified with weapons, unguided and reckless they are doomed from the start. Although this is not a movie for those who cannot stomach gritty, violent scenes, it is a thought provoking movie that is worth two hours of your time.