The festival will be opened with a celebration at 6.30 pm by the Brazilian ambassador to Botswana. The is a powerful and highly acclaimed film, rated one of the best of 2003, but it is not a movie for the fainthearted. It is replete with gratuitous violence and capricious bullets. It should be called City of Guns. Directed by Fernando Meirelles, it is based on a series of horrific events, described in the novel by Paulo Lins. It received four nominations for Oscars in 2004, but won none, but went on to accrue 29 more nominations and 49 wins including Best Foreign Language Film in Toronto and nine awards at the Havana Film Festival. There is no connection to Doctorow's novel on New York City of the same name. City of God is a fast moving film, which captivates and upsets at the same time. It spans the years from the 1960s, when the location outside Rio was established, to the final prolonged gang war of the 1980s. It is presented in chapters - as if you were watching the DVD. It is a film that feels like it was made by kids on cheap hand-held cameras and then subjected to the most sophisticated editing and musical score. The large cast of 200 local actors also are terrific.
It begins and ends with the fate of a chicken, who, unlike nearly everyone else, escapes execution by Li'l Ze. We are then introduced to the star of the film, Rocket, as an early adolescent, in secondary school, and living in Cidade de Deus, in the new boxes that were created for the masses (like new housing in South Africa). Rocket's older brother, Goose, makes up an infamous trio of gangsters with Shaggy and Clive. Li'l Dice (Douglas Silva), when younger and smaller, and before his transformation by a Sangoma into Li'l Ze, leads the trio on an attack on a motel. As soon as the trio has left with their loot he acts out his sadistic yearnings and shoots all the staff and guests.
Li'l Ze's pathological desires dominate the film as he guns his way to the top, becoming king of Rio's warlords, who control an extended turf and the manufacture, distribution and sale of pot, cocaine, and other drugs. Only his rival Carrot continued to oppose him.
The tale, through all its chapters and spanning nearly two decades, is told by Rocket (as a late adolescent played by Alexandre Rodrigues). He seeks to stay straight, though when he does attempt to become a hood, he finds himself incapable of actually making use of his brother's gun. He really aspires to be a photographer. He begins with a small camera and documents the Groovies. But it is his infatuation with the glorious Angelica (Karina Fakao) that starts him on the path to becoming a professional with the camera.
Rocket's friend Benny (Phellipe Haagensen), the only gangster in the film with any sense of humanity, is murdered at his own farewell bash - just before he and Angelica were going to leave the Cidade de Deus to farm, listen to music, read and smoke pot. Benny tells Li'l Ze he needs a woman, but he is so ugly and psychopathic that he can only purchase or rape one. At the party Benny says to Li'l Ze, "I love you, but I have had enough".
The most disturbing element in this move is "The Runts", a gang of nine to 12-year-olds who turn into brutal killers. Little "Steak and Fries" (acted by Darlan Cunha) reveals the tragedy of these tortured souls when instructed by Li'l Ze to select which of his friends to execute.
After that the battle between Li'l Ze and Carrot escalates. Innocent people are drawn into the conflict. Eventually Rocket gets the camera Benny had wanted to give to him and with it takes pictures of Li'l Ze and his gang that make the front page of one of Rio's daily tabloids. Rocket fears his days are numbered, but instead discovers that Li'l Ze has a passion to be photographed and glories in the publicity and asks for more pictures.
Eventually Rocket moves from delivering newspapers to being a recognised trainee photographer for the paper, as he continues through his camera to catalogue the outrages of Li'l Ze.
City of God is two hours and 13 minutes long. It is rated 18+ as it contains extreme violence, expressive language and nudity. It was filmed in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It is in Portuguese with English subtitles. The director is Fernando Meirelles. The script is by Braulio Mantovani from the novel by Paulo Lins. The cinematographer is Cesar Charlone. The editor is Daniel Rezende. The art director is Tule Peake. The music is by Ed Cortes and Antonio.
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