Relaxed Screening: City of God

Adapted from the 1997 novel by Paulo Lins, City of God took social concerns and expressed them in the language of the MTV, rap and disco cultures familiar to young people of the same age as its protagonists. Its power depended on its credibility, enhanced by the performances of amateurs with unknown faces, which led the audience into the at once intriguing and horrifying realm of ‘real life’ rather than the usual stylized fantasy of crime.

In the poverty-stricken favelas of Rio de Janeiro in the 1970s, two young men choose different paths. Rocket is a budding photographer who documents the increasing drug-related violence of his neighborhood, while José “Zé” Pequeno is an ambitious drug dealer diving into a dangerous life of crime.

Reviews"[Cinematographer Cesar Charlone] uses quick-cutting and a mobile, hand-held camera to tell his story with the haste and detail it deserves. Sometimes those devices can create a film that is merely busy, but City of God feels like sight itself, as we look here and then there, with danger or opportunity everywhere." – Roger Ebert

Social Narrative Here