When the creative imagination approaches complete honesty with reality, the film becomes a metaphor that transcends its limited reality into a more general meaning, which is what happened with the movie "City of God", as it turned into a picture of the planet Earth itself.

The events of the film take place in a random neighborhood that is a hotbed of crime, a home for drug trafficking, and a school for the education and graduation of generations of criminals.

Lead was the only language adopted in the city of God. Death is a daily procedure and poverty is an inherent feature. Despite all that, religion is an integral part of everyone’s life, and some even pray before being killed.

The film depicts those who were isolated and deported from the Brazilian capital, Rio de Janeiro, because of their poverty and without real intentions to be taken care of by the government, so the whole neighborhood remained in the care of the Lord, which is why the name given to the neighborhood came.

Through bloody events, painted with precision and high craftsmanship, the overall picture came to express an entire world whose only constitution is fascination with the language of power, refusal to accept the truth, and the agreed complicity to defeat humanity.

The political and military class in Brazil was preoccupied with its struggle for power, starting with the resignation of President Janio Quardios in 1961, then unrest until 1963, President Joao Jaguar's democratic assumption of power, and finally the military coup that ended the fledgling democracy in 1964.

lone survivor novel

The film is based on a novel written by the only survivor of a brutal war between robbery and drug gangs in the "City of God", the Brazilian writer Paulo Lenz. To a film that was considered a surprise to world cinema, and one of the few gifts that Brazilian art gave the world, the film won 56 awards in various festivals around the world and was nominated for 4 Oscars.

Between the bloody struggles of gangs of teenagers and children and the corruption of the police, coincidence wants a camera in the hands of a journalist to be the key to the truth, and the means of individual salvation for a person who refused to engage in the infernal circle of ignorance and perversion, a camera whose meaning expands from taking pictures to capturing the edges of the truth and collecting the details of the big picture to reach to the facts on the ground.

The options available to the boy "Rocket", who played his role - Alexander Rodriguez - were to join a gang or turn into a chicken waiting to be slaughtered, to be eaten by the gang members, but - despite the enormous obstacles - he chose his fate, while another who had come out of the circle of evil turned to it. The work puts us in front of a diversity of destinies that resulted from a social, economic and political reality that only people care about what can be turned into money.

first robbery

The first robbery in the film came from teenagers greedy for money, and distributed household gas to the residents of the city after it was stolen, and the second robbery came to provide a prophecy about the rise of a sadistic, bloodthirsty criminal, who then took control of the drug trade, while the scenario of events, which was characterized by geometric accuracy and simplicity, draws a plan Another is for a boy who loves photography, and he is the same narrator who tells the story of his survival.

What the narrator did not say, the director said, if the picture presented houses that looked like cells in their narrowness while surrounded by huge areas of empty land, as well as limitless misery in clothing, which is a clear indication of the decline of choices among the people of the “City of God” between joining gangs or death.

The director was able to adjust the rhythm of the montage, which required a very fast pace of the shots in the fights and chases, but it came quieter in the few dialogue scenes.

The boy narrator "Rocket" was not entirely perfect, as poverty prompted him to think of stealing the price of his dream camera, but those he wanted to steal were "nice people" to the point that he could not steal them.

The motive here was not so much moral-mental as it was largely emotional and childish.

survival

The film presented models, each of whom chose his fate, but surviving from the "City of God" was written for only one. Here is the "Strong Club" - actor Su Georgi - who chose to work as a "courier" who is forced to join the gangs due to the humiliation he was subjected to and also after His brother and uncle are murdered by Lil Z, the sadistic criminal and leader of the most dangerous gang in town.

As for Benny, Lil Z's only friend and fellow gang member, he decides to abandon a life of crime, but is mistakenly killed in a harsh formulation of the idea of ​​"poetic justice." He gets involved in blood and has to pay the price. Difficult, especially since the director presented him as a reverse model for the violent girlfriend, and thus the viewer's relationship with him reached the point of emotional involvement.

The director began his film with a scene cut out from the last third of the film, where a chicken is being chased by the "Lil Zee" gang until it settles near the feet of "Rocket", who holds the camera in preparation for filming, but the staff expands and we see "Rocket" and "The Hen" standing between Two gangs are about to start a bloody battle to take control, which means that shooting from either side will ensure the elimination of "Rocket" or the chicken, as if it is a reference to the fact that Rocket is a chicken waiting to be slaughtered and has no savior but the hand of "God", which is what happened.

The director then reviews in chronological order the society of the City of God with its corrupt, murderous and bribery police, the fathers some of whom are trying to distance themselves from violence and rebellion to protect their children, and the women whose fate in the City of God wants to become orphans, killed, bereaved or weeping for a beloved whose blood was sucked in the sands of the streets, and among children They learn criminology at a street school and compete to form new gangs.

Despite the bloodshed and the misery of reality at work, a light comedy mitigated the misery that characterized the work, especially when "Benny" - played by Philip Hugginson - a class-aspirant, begins to identify the clothes of the upper class of his addicted bourgeois friend.

"Lil Z" - played by actor Leonardo Firmengo - was trying in his childhood to treat his teenage colleagues intimately while they bullied him, and finally in the few scenes of the police, which the scenario showed the simplicity of the capabilities of its members and their corruption and the rhythm of their movement within the cadre, which resembles the movement of hyenas when they seek to steal prey Another animal has hunted it and is preparing to prey on it.

poor actors

The makers of the work presented a model that closely corresponds to most of the world’s capitals, which were surrounded by neighborhoods that were left without real care or control, to become an ideal image of randomness and corruption and a major source of drugs for the consumption of the capital’s residents.

The director hired the residents of the neighborhood to act in the work, and despite the unexpected success, only two actors succeeded in completing the path in the world of cinema, while the others remained battling poverty, ignorance and criminality in the city of "God" until one of them was arrested and imprisoned for stealing a woman's bag.

It is the same paradox that returns to the reality of life after a miserable image was left on the screen accompanied by the joy of art and the joy of cinema. The heroes received less than 4 thousand dollars, and the rest of the actors received the highest wages of less than a thousand dollars, so that the city of God continues in Brazil and in the land As if it were a mirror of a reality that cannot be changed.