Film Reviews

City of God

• Rating:
• Director: Fernando Meirelles
• Starring: Alexandre Rodrigues
• Details: Subtitles / Brazil / 130 mins / (18).

City of God's director has already won favourable comparisons with the likes of Quentin Tarantino and more impressively, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (Amores Perros). On the evidence of the slickly made, absorbing and deeply affecting movie, it's not hard to see why. Set in the slums of Rio and taking place over the course of a decade or so, City of God's two main characters are our narrator Rocket (Rodrigues) and his childhood associate Li'l Ze (da Hora). While both have the same burning desire to escape the slums and build better lives for themselves, Rocket pursues his dreams of becoming a photographer. On the otherhand, Li'l Ze rises to become one of the ghetto's pre-eminent crime lords, a man whose cruelty knows few boundaries.
Richly woven and confidentially delivered, City of God is a rich multi-layered offering, which never attempts to temper the material or characters to make it more palpable, City of God is an extremely accomplished offering. Although his direction is a little self-conscious in places, Meirelles does an exquisite of helming the narrative and teasing some vital performances out of his cast, many of them non- professionals actors. A final word of warning: If you found the dog fights in Amores Perros difficult to watch, then you'd be best advised to steer a wide berth of this, as City of God is one of the most graphically violent movies I've seen in a long time. Meirelles is brave enough to lace the narrative with a healthy dose of black humour, but you really shouldn't bring your Mam along to see this one. Near perfect.

Review by Garreth Murphy