[Reader-list] Urban desperation in the movies

[Rana Dasgupta]

This is a NYT review of a new film "City of God" just
released, about gangs in poor communities in Rio.  You
may have seen reviews also of the just-released Gangs
of New York, about urban violence among poor immigrant
in NYC in the 20s.  Don't know if these two films make
a "trend" but think this interest in the raw, violent
urban experience is rather different from the glamour
of mafia movies.  somehow the city is entering cinema
in a different fashion.

R

Gangs of Rio de Janeiro

By STEPHEN HOLDEN


In "City of God," Fernando Meirelles's scorching
anecdotal history of violence in the slums of Rio de
Janeiro, a fretful boy with the cute nickname Steak &
Fries (Darlan Cunha), begs for a gun that would
certify his membership in one of two rival gangs. "I
smoke, I snort, I've killed and robbed," he pleads
none too convincingly. "I'm a man."

Handed a weapon he doesn't know how to use, this eager
new recruit, whose voice has barely begun to change,
rushes to join one of the clashing posses of armed
children swarming through Cidade de Deus (City of
God). A sprawling housing project built in the 1960's
on the outskirts of Rio and left to fester in a
poisonous stew of poverty, drugs and crime, it has
degenerated into a war zone so dangerous that visitors
from outside risk being shot to death.

The movie traces the neighborhood's decline over a
decade and a half, from a sun-baked shantytown of
earth-colored bungalows where the children while away
the days in soccer games and petty thievery into a
shadowy slum teeming with armed adolescent warriors.

The portrait of a boy soldier enlisting in a volunteer
criminal army with an astronomical mortality rate is
one of many profoundly unsettling images that jostle
through the film. Another is a scene in which a
gangster coerces a frightened boy, who has been
poaching on his territory, to choose between being
shot in the hand or the foot.

As the victim, who chooses the foot, hobbles away in
agony, he is ordered not to limp.

"City of God," which opens today in New York and Los
Angeles, is the latest and one of the most powerful in
a recent spate of movies that remind us that the
civilized society we take for granted is actually a
luxury. Although the police pop up now and again in
Cidade de Deus, law and order are as scarce on these
mean streets (just minutes away from one of the
world's most glorious beaches) as they are in the
slums of 1860's Manhattan depicted in Martin
Scorsese's "Gangs of New York." 

Anyone who once dressed up as a cowboy and played
shoot-'em-up games with the neighborhood kids will
wince with sadness as these packs of children cavort
through the streets, flourishing real guns as though
they were toys and chattering excitedly about murder.

"City of God," which has already created a sensation
in Brazil, was adapted from a best-selling novel by
Paulo Lins, who grew up in Cidade de Deus. Its
narrator, Rocket (Alexandre Rodrigues), is a young
photographer from the same neighborhood whose
loose-jointed yarns follow the fates of a number of
his childhood acquaintances. What saves Rocket from
being consumed by the thug life around him is his
passion for photography, along with his own comic
ineptitude at crime.

The movie is divided into three chapters, each bleaker
and more appalling than the one before; they parallel
the intertwining destinies of Rocket and one of his
childhood playmates, Li'l Dice (Douglas Silva). After
growing up and changing his nickname to Li'l Zé
(Leandro Firmino da Hora takes over the role), he
ascends into a trigger-happy drug dealer and local
kingpin.

"City of God" can be grimly amusing, as in the opening
scene, in which Li'l Zé and his juvenile army amuse
themselves by chasing a flustered chicken down the
street. That ridiculous image introduces a note of
absurdist humor that is carried forward by Rocket's
dispassionately chatty storytelling. From here the
movie immediately flashes back to the 1960's and
Rocket's recollections of a clique of adolescent
outlaws called the Tender Trio, whose big-time
criminal career begins with their robbery of a
brothel.

As the story lurches ahead, the drugs become harder
(cocaine supplants marijuana) and the weaponry more
deadly. The second chapter, set in the 1970's, focuses
on Li'l Zé, now a grinning sociopath with an appetite
for murder, and his reign of terror. The only thing
keeping his crazier impulses in check is his
lieutenant Benny (Phellipe Haagensen), a smart,
good-hearted gangster with a hippie sensibility who
eventually decides to abandon the criminal life. The
farewell party Benny arranges for himself at which the
merriment turns tragically violent (to the strains of
"Kung Fu Fighting") is one of the film's most
spectacular set pieces. 

The final third, set in the early 1980's, finds Li'l
Zé's empire threatened by an even younger crew of
pre-teenage gangsters called the Runts (some of them
only 9 and 10), who disregard his authority. It all
builds to a showdown between Li'l Zé and a rival band
led by Knockout Ned (Seu Jorge), a peaceable bus-fare
collector who turns into avenging fury after Li'l Zé
rapes his girlfriend and shoots his brother.

Rocket, meanwhile, cinches his escape from the
criminal life when his sensational photo of Li'l Zé
and his posse winds up on the front page of a
newspaper. Resigned to being killed for exposing the
gangster, Rocket instead finds himself hired by the
publicity-hungry thug as a kind of court photographer.
Most of the movie's final bloodbath is observed
through his camera's lens.

If its panoramic scenes of street fighting recall
"Gangs of New York," the tone and structure of "City
of God" are closer to Mr. Scorsese's "Goodfellas,"
with which it shares the same attitude of brash
nonchalance and fondness for tall-sounding tales.

Underscored by samba music, much of the treachery and
violence unfold in what could be described only as a
party atmosphere.

Because it was filmed with hand-held cameras on the
streets of Rio (but not in Cidade de Deus) with a cast
that includes some 200 nonprofessional actors, "City
of God" conveys the authenticity of a cinéma vérité
scrapbook. Cesar Charlone's restless cinematography is
a flashy potpourri of effects that include slow and
accelerated motion, the use of split screens and a
dramatically varied expressionistic palette.

As the movie's frenetic visual rhythms and mood swings
synchronize with the zany, adrenaline-fueled
impulsiveness of its lost youth on the rampage, you
may find yourself getting lost in this teeming
netherworld. To experience this devastating movie is a
little like attending a children's birthday party that
goes wildly out of control. You watch in helpless
disbelief as the apple-cheeked revelers turn into
little devils gleefully smashing everything in sight.

"City of God" is rated R (Under 17 requires
accompanying parent or adult guardian). It has scenes
of violence and graphic sex talk.


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