Me and My film, mock taskBy Rafael Antunes

The art of film is one of the most prestigious arts inthe world and also one of the most profitable andappreciated ones. However different films cause differentemotions and feelings, but at the same time, a singlefilm causes different reactions in different people. Whenthe producers develop a film for a target audience, thatsame audience will always be more relatable to the plotand to the film than the rest, but inside that sametarget audience, we as viewers experience differentemotions to what we are seeing and listening. I’m noexception to that.One of the films that touched the center of my soul likeno other, for its violence, harsh reality and brilliantcraftsmanship is the City of God. A film that provides athrilling experience full of violence and with the senseof non-fictional reality like no other filmed I’ve everseen. The film showcases the harsh realities and thelives of people in the City of God, one of the mostfamous favelas in Rio, through the eyes of a poor andblack youth, Rocket, as we are introduced and took intohis own personal narration of how the life works in theCity of God. Like he said: “Na Cidade de Deus, se correr o bichopega, e se ficar o bicho come”, in other words, if you stay inthe city of God they will “eat” you, if you run away theywill get you. It’s a little bit ironic that in the City ofGod the life is anything but heavenly, with horrendouscrimes committed everyday by young boys and men, drivenby the pursuit for richness and drug addiction and toescape poverty. If we look at the title of the movie wecan see how appellative it is. The title relates more tothe religious audience, which is in fact one of the mostprofitable audiences that exists! A good example is “ThePassion of the Christ” that made a fantastic box officeprofit. However this film is not about religion but aboutone of the most famous favelas in Rio, which makes iteven more popular, especially in Brazil. All of thisreality is shown throughout the movie with the perfect

and brilliant use of the micro-features of film: usingthe combination of the diegetic sound with the non-diegetic sound; the amazing close ups and camera anglesand simplistic but rather effective editing present insome many scenes.

In my opinion the scene that affected me the most andthe one that showed the true beautifulness of the movieand played with so many emotions is the opening scene.The opening is marvelous piece of editing andcinematography along side a very complex sound edition,which makes the whole scene, absolutely sublime. Thescene starts of with a non-diegetic sound and flashimages of knives being sharpened. These sounds make aninstant impact in the audience’s feelings and attention,getting the audience’s attention right from thebeginning, exciting and igniting their senses andfeelings with the sounds, making us get into the harsh

and violent crime of theBrazilian favelas with aslight touch of samba.The scene when they killthe chickens and cuttheir necks is reallywell shown with close upsfrom the knivestrespassing the chickens

necks without hesitating, highlighting the true andnatural cold blood killers they are. This killing sceneis accompanied by Samba, the typical Brazilian music,that relates to the fact that the Brazilian culture andfavelas don’t just relate to death and crime but they arethe place where the raw Brazilian culture came from, andof course wheresamba was created.

Genre:The genre of this

film, in my personalopinion isbiography, crime anddrama. The biographygenre is really obvious due to the fact that the whole

story is told by Rocket the protagonist, not just hisstory but also the story of the City of God, with hisnarration throughout the whole movie, explaining thestory and the characters to the audience. In the otherhand I could argue that this is not the biography fromRocket but the biography of the City of God. The drama isa little bit hard to analyze due to the fact that theyare too many conventions to follow, however there are acouple of them that are really obvious that identify thismovie as a drama. The drama can be seen with the entirestory between Rocket and Angelica, and most important therelation between Lil’Zé and Benny. These two grew uptogether and were always together in the world of crimeand in some way their relationship was one of the mostimportant relations in the whole story. The highest pointof drama was the death of Benny in the club with theclassic dramatic shot from Angelic kneeling on the floorholding Benny’s corpus, screaming and crying. Thesescenes creates one the most severe impacts in theaudience feelings due to the fact that Benny is one themost loved characters in the whole film and also the onecharacter from the story that everyone loved. The crimeis another genre that is really well represented in thismovie. The crime lives and happens everywhere in the Cityof God, from young children to grown up mans, everyone Isguilty, in this place not so blessed by god. All theconventions for crime are followed, with crimescommitted, the police trying to get the bad guys and inthe end the villain is caught or dies. This is shownthrough very well placed camera angles and beautifulsound effects from shots fired all the time and theconstant presence of the police sirens in the background.

Toderov’s Theory:

Many linguistic experts state that all theconventional narratives tend to follow the well-knownToderov’s theory, divided into Equilibrium, Disruption,

Recognition, Repair and Equilibrium. Even though thebrilliant and well-structured narrative of my film isquite unusual, it is somewhat interactive, allowingviewers to keep rearranging the plot as it cleverlyprovides more and more information. However the narrativefollows the Toderov’s theory:

1 st Equilibrium : The plot surrounds not just theprotagonist, Rocket, but also the lives of certain peoplein the favela. The equilibrium is established in thenormal days of the favela with Rocket, striving to be aphotographer and living a “normal” and average life of ateenager in a favela. His life is normal for a averageteenager in the favela but quite unusual at the same timefor outside people like us. For a normal teenager in thefavela it’s normal for them to do drugs and he is noexception, however when it comes to crime and drugtraffic he is different from the rest, only focusing instudying and becoming a professional photographer. Theequilibrium is more focused in the normal life of thefavela with the different “bocas” (drugs regions)smuggling and dealing drugs throughout the favela withoutmajor conflicts between the “bocas” managers.

Disruption: The disruption takes place when Lil’Zédecides to take over the drug traffic in the City of God.Lil’Zé aka Dadinho starts to think that the crime life isnot paying back so he decides to turn his attention todrugs. He starts taking over all the “bocas” and the drugmarket in the City of God, killing everyone who stands onhis way, turning the favela in a huge pool of blood anddeath. This is highlighted from the editing done betweenthe bird’s eye view shot from the Lil’Zé’s gang killingthe different “bocas” bosses and taking over theirbusinesses, using young kids to help him.

Recognition: The Recognition happens when Lil’Zé andhis gang kills Knockout Ned’s (Ned) family and rapes hisgirlfriend and making him watches the whole scene. Thisis really highlighted when after the gang kills hisfamily, he kills one of them and the people from thefavela comes to him to congratulate him for his act ofbravery. Also after killing the member we get a high

angle shot from Ned, just like if God is looking afterhim. In addition to this scene the narrator (Rocket),says: “The City of God” has found its new hero against Lil’Zé.”. This isone of the scenes that make me love this movie so much.This scene when Lil’Zé kills Ned’s brother is so touchingand so abrupt that makes the audience freeze to how coldblooded and quick his death was, once again showing tothe audience the harsh and bloody reality of the favelasin Rio.

Repair: The war between Carrot’s gang and Lil’Zé’sgang made hundreds of deaths and the war is close to end.While Lil’Zé is captured by the police and handcuffed andthe small orphan, son of the police officer Ned shot whenhe robbed a bank, killed him the big Knockout Ned beforedying in pain after being shot by one of the members ofLil’Zé gang. This last scene is a complete shock for theaudience, since we were related to this character as thehero of all this story and in the end he died, due tosomething so stupid as revenge, making us change ourminds in a sec about how guilty he was. This is one ofthings that makes the film so good and narrative so welldeveloped, the fact that in the end the audience willsay: “No way!”

2 nd Equilibrium: This Equilibrium happens when the allthe “peace” is restored in the plot and everything goesback to normal, in this case this normality is achievedwhen the Lil’Zé is finally killed and Rocket gets a jobas photographer in one of journal’s in Rio. At thismoment me as a viewer feels relief that the Lil’Zé isdead and that our good friend Rocket aka BuscaPé became aprofessional photographer like he always wanted.

Propp’s Theory:

Throughout the years many writers and thinkers statedthat the conventional narrative is based not just onToderov’s Theory but also on the Propp’s characterstheory. This theory states that in every single narrativethere will always be a hero, a villain, a dispatcher, aprize, a mentor and a blocker. This is film is no

exception to that theory. This film has all thosecharacter and indeed follows this theory, and thecharacter that I relate the most with is thehero/protagonist, Rocket. Since I am a teenager, it isalmost obvious that the first character that I wouldrelate with would be the protagonist teenager. The mainreason why this happens is because of the fact that thisfilm is based in real life events and in true storiesmaking it even more effective, when it comes to itsimpact in our minds and societies. The fact that I have aproper place to shower, an opportunity to study in aproper school and to have a photographic camera withouthaving to go through that entire violent environment,pierces my soul deeply as nice, which is indeed thedesired effect. The narrative is almost designed for usto feel sorry for him, as someone who has walk throughhell and got out of there, with his life and soul full ofscars made by this aggressive and torturing reality, thatis present in the City of God. One of the things that mosthighlights this harsh life is when he is in Marina’shouse and she asks is they have hot water to shower, andthey say he doesn’t, they just get the water put theminside a bawl, boil it and then you shower with it. Eventhough he lives in a harsh environment and he doesn’thave a perfect life, he still manages to be alwayssmiling and happy, which is very effective in theemotional response from the audience.

Feminist Theory

In Fernando Meirelles evocative masterpiece, therepresentation of gender is of paramount importance inimbuing the text with gendered realism – the effect thatgender plays in life and death is significant, andpervades the text as a reminder that even in today’ssociety, gender is still a pertinent aspect of generallife. The representation of gender in the film can beseen to be stereotypical – men have power, women do not,men are physically strong, women are not, men kill, womendo not. In fact, the only way that women can controltheir men is through a sexual hold – showing that theirinfluence is purely animalistic.

In the film, one scene that raises pertinent issuesregarding the issue offemales being viewed asobjects for men’s sexualgratification is whenKnockout Ned’s girlfriendis brutally raped whilsthe is forced to hear heranimalistic screams ashis head is pressed down onto the cold gravel ground.This portrays women as empty souls for men’s chargedemotions - weak individuals with no strength to fighttheir sexual oppressors.Ironically, a later scene in the film contrasts this viewwhen a journalist uses sex to manipulate Rocket. This isa negative representation of women as it is depictingthem as being sexually predatory; using men to meet theirown needs with no consideration of the potentialconsequences. They are effectivelygaining an element of power via apurely sexual hold. In another shocking scene in thefilm, Shorty kills his wife afterfinds her with another man. Hebrutally beats her with a shovel andthen buries her. This horrifyingdepiction of male violence suggestshow women often become victims inthis world where only the men havepower.

The actors and the Directors:Even though we can this film one of

the best of the cinema history, it’sinteresting to notice that it’s notfrom Hollywood nor does it have afamous director or actors. All theactors in the movie where not chosenbecause of their skill or their talentbut essentially because of their pastand their looks. The big majority ofthe actors lives or were living in

favelas in that time, and since they were so used to thatkind of reality, they would make the acting natural andsomething special, since they are portraying themselves.This creates a special feeling not just for the actorsbut also for the viewer, because not just the story isreal that it is also real favela actors starring, showingthat nothing is impossible in the City of God and that thisreality really exists. It obvious that there are someexceptions, like Alice Braga which is one the most famousBrazilian actors now, when that time she was the“people’s actress” starring in some soap operas in thattime. Since Brazil is world known by having the best soapoperas on the planet, it didn’t take long until Alicebecame a Hollywood star.

The director was not an A-list director, but he wasindeed known for directing some soap operas and alsoknown for a well-rated movie called Maids. This past insoap operas make him a fantastic option to direct thismovie since it follows the exact same structure of soapoperas, with a multi-strand narrative that in the endconnects every single narrative with each other, and ofcourse lots of drama and real acting.

Technical specs:From all the specs and fantastic effects the one

that most affects me is definitely the sound effects. Thesound editing is absolutely superb with well-placed audiostory telling to avoid too violent scenes and or sexualcontent. Our audition is one of the most powerful andemotional senses that we possess. How many times did agood sound give you the chills? How many has a horrorfilm scared you with a woman scream? It’s intense and atthe same time is very quick to create an effect. Thesound effects were amazingly designed to affect theaudience’s feelings and to establish the environment thatsurrounds a character or an event. There are so many goodexamples but the one that touches my heart the most isagain, when Ned’s girlfriend is being raped by Lil’Zé andthe only thing that we see are some random shots fromLil’Zé’s body to demonstrate movement and the face of Nedon the floor, making him look at the whole scene.Throughout this scene we get not just the sounds of

pleasure from Lil’Zé but also the screams of agony andpain from Ned’s girlfriend trying to escape. This soundshows the audience that they were having relationsagainst her will, making me as an audience, feel supershocked and heart broken.

Message and values:

In my opinion the message and values that may arisewhile watching the movie are pretty obvious and all themessages are quite clear and straight forward, howeverthere is a significant number of them. There are messageslike, poverty, drug abuse, and the value of continuingpure and not to follow the wrong path, the fact thatwomen are objects and not people deserving a proper story(since all the main character were man, expect Angelicawho was considered a sexual desire from the protagonist)etc. But the value and message that created the majorimpact after and while I was watching the movie was thefact that this is the reality and the sense that thishappened and that all of this horrible things happened tothese people. When watching this movie your mind will flyto another place and embark in a philosophic journey.Thinking that this kid, with the same age as me livedlike this, in such a wild and harsh environment and stillmanaged to follow his dream. A kid that leaved withdrugs, crime and death around him and struggling even toget something to eat or warm water to take a shower,while I am writing this essay in a modern and expensivelaptop after a hot shower and a fasting dinner. Themessage is clear as clear as water, that life is unfairbut following your dreams and never give up will make yousuccessful even if you live in a place forgotten by thegod and by good.

Concluding:To finish this analysis, I would say that this film isnot just a film that you watch one time, I think it’s amovie that will not make you tired for more times youwatch it, due to it’s ability to interact with yourfeelings and emotions. My relation with this film is notjust as an audience but as someone who lives its ideals

and learns with the messages and values transmitted bythem. A film that made me almost cry and filmed thatshocked me, both two emotions that is rare to happen withme while watching a movie. The interaction that Iestablished the characters is so amazing that I know mostof the lines from some of them. I know how to speak theirlanguage and know their real names, making it even morespecial for me. Finally, I would say that the movie isnot just a magisterial manmade piece of art and afantastic example of a good editing but the amazing andexquisite use of the micro features of film to createspecific feeling and emotions and to transmit these tothe audience.