10 Best Films of the Decade 2000’s #5 City of God (Fernando Meirelles and Katia Lund, 2002): Brazil/France

Reviewed by Byron Potau. Viewed on DVD.

Based on a true story, Fernando Meirelles and Katia Lund’s City of God is an electrifying viewing experience. With its extreme violence, and rise and fall of gangsters storyline it is easy to see how this film initially appealed to a wider audience, but it is the film’s creativity with its subject matter and incredible attention to character that make it a great film and #5 on my list of the best films of the decade.

The film tells the story of the rise in crime in the City of God, a slum suburb in Brazil, and particularly the rise of Lil Ze’ (Leandro Firmino) as seen through the eyes, and heard through the narration, of budding photographer Rocket (Alexandre Rodrigues) who grew up with Lil Ze’.

In the sixties Lil Ze’ is called Lil Dice (Douglas Silva). He is young, but he has ideas, one of which he gives to Shaggy (Jonathan Haagensen) the leader of the Tender Trio, a group of young thugs who mostly rob gas trucks, and this turns out to be the demise of the trio.

In the Seventies Lil Dice becomes Lil Ze’ and mercilessly takes over the drug trade in the neighborhood along with best friend Benny (Phellipe Haagensen). While Rocket wants no part of it he can’t escape it, yet it’s his exclusive pictures of Lil Ze’ and his gang that gain him notoriety.

Directors Meirelles and Lund move the film along at breakneck speed and separates different parts of it into their own little stories, such as The Story of the Tender Trio or The Story of the Apartment. These little episodes have the feel of an inside look and the directors have their camera all over the place giving us views from all vantage points. Sometimes we’re in the action and sometimes we’re lurking around the corner spying on it. This inventive, original, and complex storytelling with flashbacks and side stories give us a deeper understanding of the characters and their motives. It’s a frenetic viewing experience.

The film’s ultra violence is both shocking and enthralling, but as disturbing as it is at times it never seems gratuitous. The film is also visually stunning in a way few films have ever been employing a multitude of techniques. Every scene appears to be developed with the utmost attention to detail, style, clarity, and ingenuity. There is not a single scene that doesn’t need to be there and the directors never appear to be showing off for us.

The cast is uniformly terrific, and the film also excels in the technical areas of cinematography, editing, and sound. Clearly it is one of the best gangster films of all time, and many would say it should be higher on this list. I have to admit I wouldn’t put up much of an argument against it.