City of God [Blu-ray]

Director: Fernando Meirelles, Kátia Lund, Katia Lund Fernando Meirelles

Overview

Fernando Meirelles' City of God is a sweeping tale of how crime affects the poor population of Rio de Janeiro. Though the narrative skips around in time, the main focus is on Cabeleira who formed a gang called the Tender Trio. He and his best friend, Bené (Phelipe Haagensen), become crime lords over the course of a decade. When Bené is killed before he can retire, Lil' Zé attempts to take out his arch enemy, Sandro Cenoura (Matheus Nachtergaele). But Sandro and a young gangster named Mane form an alliance and begin a gang war with Lil' Zé. Amateur photographer Buscape (Alexandre Rodrigues) takes pictures of the brutal crime war, making their story famous. City of God was screened at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival.

Product Details

Release Date:	07/27/2021
UPC:	0191329203309
Original Release:	2002
Source:	Miramax
Language:	English
Time:	2:09:00

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Alexandre Rodrigues	Buscapé,Berenice
Leandro Firmino da Hora	Zé Pequeno
Phellipe Haagensen	Bené,Cabeleira,Bené (Benny)
Douglas Silva	Dadinho - Zé Pequeno Criança,Rafael
Seu Jorge	Mané Galinha - Manuel Machado Rocha
Alice Braga	Angélica
Emerson Gomes	Barbantinho - Criança
Edson Oliveirra	Barbantinho
Michel de Souza Gomes	Bené - Criança
Luis Otavio	Buscapé - Criança
Mauricio Marques	Cabeção
Robson Rocha	Gélson
Thiago Martins	Lampião
Leandra Miranda	Lúcia Maracanã
Graziella Moretto	Marina Cintra
Jefechander Suplino	Alicate
Renato de Souza	Marreco
Dero Camilo	Paraíba
Karina Falcao	Mulher de "Paraíba"
Rubens Sabino	Neguinho
Sabrina Rosa	Mulher do "Galinha"
Marcos Junqueira (Kikito)	Otávio
Daniel Zettel	Thiago
Charles Paraventi	Tio Sam
Luis Carlos Ribeiro Seixas	Touro
Paulo Cesar (Jacare)	Tuba
Leandro Firmino	Actor
Matheus Nachtergaele	Sandro Cenoura (Carrot)
Roberta Rodriguez Silvia	Berenice
Darlan Cunha	Filé-com-Fritas
Ed Cortes	Composer
Antonio Pinto	Composer

Technical Credits

Bráulio Mantovani

Fernando Meirelles	Director
Bráulio Mantovani	Screenwriter,Screenwriter
Mauricio Andrade Ramos	Producer
Andrea Barata Ribeiro	Producer
Renato Batata	Special Effects
M.M. Arte Tecnica	Special Effects
No Mundo do Cinema	Casting
Fatima Toledo	Casting
Donald K. Ranvaud	Executive Producer,Producer
Kátia Lund	Director,Director
Walter Salles	Producer
Elisa Tolomelli	Executive Producer
Juliette Renaud	Executive Producer
Guiherme Ayrosa	Sound/Sound Designer
Martin Hernandez	Sound/Sound Designer
Paulo Nunes	Sound/Sound Designer

Editorial Reviews

This breathtaking, ferocious, and occasionally terrifying drama about violent gangs in Rio de Janeiro has been compared to Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas, and the comparison is an apt one. The movie is about a city within a city, a sizable slum where life unfolds chaotically and the law has little sway. In this milieu, young men thrive only when they join a gang, so that's the obvious choice for Rocket (Alexandre Rodrigues). With poverty undermining most of the slum's families, the gangs offer structure and community. While Rocket and his friends are certainly criminals, they're not very wealthy, because their activities are limited to the "City of God," whose inhabitants don't have much money. Living lives of violence and desperation, the gang members don't expect to reach a ripe old age -- a perfectly understandable feeling, given the savagery and suddenness of their clashes with rivals. Fernando Meirelles (whose direction earned an Oscar nomination) and his co-director, Katia Lund, employ jerky shots taken with handheld cameras and rapid cutting to give the film a jagged sense of urgency. In this city, danger lurks around every corner, and only the quick of mind and fleet of foot can expect to survive. This urban wasteland seems Dickensian, and the supporting characters are invested with colorful personalities. Brazil's president called City of God a necessary wake-up call, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences saw fit to nominate the film for four Oscars -- in addition to the nod for Meirelles, the film’s cinematography, screenplay, and editing were also cited. The movie doesn't romanticize, exploit, or condescend, as some gangster films do, yet it is every bit as riveting and memorable as many of the genre’s celebrated masterworks.

Barnes & Noble - Ed Hulse

Fernando Meirelles' City of God starts with a bang, and it doesn't just unfold quickly -- it flies at the audience like it was shot out of a cannon. Based on the novel by Paulo Lins, it's a vibrantly hyperkinetic, hyperstylized gangster-drug saga in the tradition of Goodfellas and Trainspotting, complete with jump cuts, whip pans, split screens, freeze frames, elliptical leaps back and forward in time, and wry, self-conscious narration. But City of God has its own unique soulfulness as it explores a vortex of intense poverty and violence that sucks in young men and boys of varied temperaments, who grow up more cynical and violent with each successive generation. Based on actual events and well-cast with nonprofessional young actors pulled from Cidade de Deus, a government-built slum outside Rio de Janeiro, the film exposes a shadow world just miles from a tourist paradise. Rocket (Alexandre Rodrigues), a good-natured boy who comically learns that he's not cut out to be a hoodlum, decides to become a photojournalist. He's the film's audience/author surrogate, narrator, and moral center. Lil' Dice (Douglas Silva), meanwhile, is a natural-born killer, a sociopath who craves power and loves violence. He grows up, changes his name to Lil' Zé (Leandro Firmino da Hora), and takes over most of the city's drug trade. They're surrounded by an assortment of colorful, well-drawn characters, each of whom eventually have to confront the consequences of their violent lifestyle. While Lil' Zé is the closest the film comes to a real villain, he's shown to be fully human, winning a little bit of audience sympathy when he confronts the fact that he can't find a girlfriend, before again veering off into psychotic mayhem. City of God is a thrilling, sardonically witty, vital, and disturbing cinematic tour de force.

All Movie Guide - Josh Ralske