[Reader-list] Urban desperation in the movies

[Menso Heus]

On Thu, Jan 16, 2003 at 10:41:14PM -0800, Rana Dasgupta wrote:
> 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.

Hi Rana,

I think this "trend" is not new, there's 
1991's Boyz N the Hood, 1993's Menace II Society,
1998's American History X, etc. 

All these movies are about being in gangs, poor, and
racial tensions... and of wanting to get out, ofcourse.

So, maybe it's a slight revival, but I certainly wouldn't
want to call it a new trend :)

Menso
 
> 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 Z?
> (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 Z? 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 Z?, 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
> Z?'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 Z? and a rival band
> led by Knockout Ned (Seu Jorge), a peaceable bus-fare
> collector who turns into avenging fury after Li'l Z?
> rapes his girlfriend and shoots his brother.
> 
> Rocket, meanwhile, cinches his escape from the
> criminal life when his sensational photo of Li'l Z?
> 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 cin?ma v?rit?
> 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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