17th Favorite Movie - City of God

Make sure you have read the first post in this series ("My 50 Favorite Movies") before you read on...

City of God did not receive much attention when it was released in theaters in 2003, but it has picked up a following on DVD. It is currently #17 on the imdb.com Top 250 of all time, and it even spawned a television show called City of Men. I imagine there are a lot of people who would love this movie but will never see it because it is a Brazilian film in Portuguese with English subtitles. It took me a few years to convince my last roommate Brent to watch it... he kept saying he doesn't like having to "read" during movies. I think he owns a copy now.

The film is about a group of kids growing up in the slums of Rio De Janeiro surrounded by gang and drug activity. It begins when they are elementary school aged and follows them until they are in their late teenage years. Think Boyz in the Hood or Goodfellas, although even bleaker and more harrowing because of the impoverishment where they are growing up. They live in a neighborhood called called City of God, but it is about as far from paradise as you can imagine. The main character, Rocket, hopes that his passion for photography will one day provide an escape from the neverending cycle of violence which has claimed the lives of many of his friends and family.

City of God has some great names for its characters: Shaggy, Carrot, Lil' Dice... and it is broken up into chapters, each one beginning with a title such as "The Story of Knockout Ned". It was nominated for 4 Oscars in 2004 including Best Director, Best Editing, Best Cinematography and Best Writing, but was shut out in all four categories (that seems to be a reoccuring theme in this list). While it is very violent and stylized, your heart will break for these kids and you will discover that there are places other than L.A. and New York in the world with communties that are devasted by gang warfare.