Brazilian Cinema and City Of God

Todorov’s theory of an equilibrium.

According to this theory, disequilibrium arrives after equilibrium which then paves the way for new equilibrium. This can be easily seen reflected in City of God. When the movie begins, there is peace. Although it is not the way normal society is used to seeing peace, it is peace nonetheless. However, is is soon disrupted after the massacre in the brothel by Lil Dice. This results in the eventual downfall of the members of the "Tender Trio." When Lil Dice becomes Lil Ze and takes control of the city, there is equilibrium again. Although he used years of violence to get to where he his, he has achieve peace in the City of God. However, his further involvement in the violence leads to an all out war in the middle of the city between Lil Ze and Knockout Ned's gangs. Finally at the end of the movie, everything is restored. However, the director shows little children walking away from the camera talking about killing someone they dislike because they are the ones in power now. The shot is static and everything is visible in the frame due to the deep focus. This allows for the audience to soak in all the action they just witnessed only to see the cycle repeat itself all over again.


Narrative Enigma 

Narrative enigmas, or unanswered questions that mislead the audience, is one of the many techniques seen in the film. This is done through the audience's knowledge coming into account and predicting what is likely to happen. This hypothesis is made from the prior knowledge gained from the film. The best example of this is Tiago and Bene's race. From what we know about Lil Ze and his associates is that they kill for what they want. When Tiago arrives, he almost seems like a burden and the way Bene chases after him is not a good sign. Additionally, the use of quick shots and reverse angles with the framing getting closer and closer to the characters adds to this sense of anxiety. However, nothing happens at the end. The set-up leads to no true expected resolution, which makes this film unique in its own way. Although it is expected that the race is going to end with Tiago suffering, the exact opposite happens; Tiago and Bene befriend one another. This misleading scene shows that the characters in the story are not as black and white as they may appear to be. They all have layers that reveal them to be more than just a caricature.


Diegetic narrative devices



These devices include newspapers, photographs, music, and T.V. interviews. The film's inclusion of newspapers and photographs show the blend of the violent world in the rest of society. Rather, it shows the desire to be separate from this world of violence. Rocket, in a way, is dependent of the society's crave for this knowledge of the less known violent society. He gets a job and gets to lose his virginity due to the opportunity given to him. Additionally, the film has a blend of modern (for the 70s) music with almost no music at all. The music playing at Bene's farewell party bring all the different groups in the city together. This further signifies the importance of culture in modern society. What I find the most interesting is actually the lack of music in specific sections. What that does is that it creates a realistic tone in which the audience does not know what to expected because there is no music for guidance. This creates for incredibly powerful and emotional scenes such as the one where Lil Ze makes a kid kill one of the Runts.

The character of Rocket is what most interest me for my personal research. It is his role as not just the narrator, but his role as a character as well. More specifically, the idea that he uses a camera as a way to protect himself from the violence is what I find the most interesting especially because traces of its importance can be seen in hand-held voyeuristic cinematography. I am interested in looking at other films who use a similar technique or form of cinematography to tell something about the story and the characters. I don't want to looking at "found footage" films because although they have something similar to what is being done in City of God, it is not done for the same reason. Cinematography of a movie like Saving Private Ryan would seem more appropriate because the shaky camerawork adds to the brutality of war.




Source:



http://brianair.wordpress.com/film-analysis/city-of-god/