It has been more than a few weeks since I saw this film. The week I had seen it, I had wanted to write about it but when I had intended to, an image formed in my mind: it was the post appearing on my blog with the title "City of God". Somehow it bothered me to have a title with the word 'God' in it on my blog. I am not exactly sure why it bothered me. This film is definitely not a religious film either. In fact, I think there is lots of irony in that the name of the city being City of God because it looks like a place "god forgot". The amount of crime and the lack of moral is immense. There is no order or karma either. So, in the end, I got over having a post with the word 'god' in its title on my blog, and here we are.
While watching this film, the emotions I felt the most were sorrow and worry. The 'world' depicted in the film resembles a dystopia, except it is not set in the future, it is set in the recent past (the film was made in 2002), and it doesn't take place in some other place in space, it is happening in a real country in the world we live in. The main character is pretty much a serial killer and as I mentioned above the city has a high rate of crime, but none of this is mainstream in this film. To illustrate this, let me briefly mention a couple of examples.
There is a rape scene in the film but it is much worse than what you would expect because 1) they don't actually show it, 2) he makes the girl's boyfriend watch it happen. Sometimes the strength of certain scenes comes from "not showing" and this is one of those instances (another example is in Persona how they didn't show any scenes showing the orgy but had the woman character describe it with words only). And, in this film while they didn't explicitly show the rape completely, they showed the boyfriend who was made to watch it happen, and, this is a product of the main character being a sociopath. Like, you are already a rapist (which is bad enough), why did you need the boyfriend to watch?!?! This is the general air in the film, there is always something worse on top of something that's already bad enough.
There is lots of killing in the film too but there isn't much meaning to it, and they kill children too. Killing, you can get in many films. Blood? Yeah there are lots like that. But in this film, it is a manifold of killing. The blood didn't bother me at all, I must add, so I think it was in appropriate amount within the context and properly coloured. The scene that struck me the most was when the main guy (with his gang) caught two little boys and asked each of them to choose between their hands and feet, which one would they like to be shot? It's already cruel enough to pose this question, but it doesn't end there. In the meantime, the little boys are so scared they pee themselves. Now, don't get me wrong---I don't even like children (no offence), but I did feel bad for these boys. Then, each boy chooses the hand, and the bad guy shoots their feet. What bothered me the most here is that he is not just being bad or evil, this is not simply killing/hurting, this is worse: he is creating an illusion of choice just so that there is more disappointment. Unfortunately, dear reader, it doesn't end there either. Next, the gang head gives the gun to his 'apprentice' who is also more or less a kid, then asks him to choose one of the little boys and kill. At that moment, I was already feeling very bad, and all I could think of was 'please kill the younger one' (the two boys weren't of the same age, maybe something like at the ages of 4 and 8). Why did I think that? Well, it is already painful to think of something like this of course, but in my head, I thought it's easier for the older one to survive through this trauma. But they killed the older little boy and so the younger one was scarred for life now, had to get shot with his friend and had to witness his friend being killed in front of his eyes. I don't think he can come out of that ever. I am not a heroic person but I'd prefer dying to watching a friend getting killed in front of my eyes. In fact, this is the opposite of being heroic, it is very selfish---I merely want that because I wouldn't want to live with that image in my mind for the rest of my life.
There was only one potential good thing in the film, it was a boy who wanted to be a photographer. Since every single thing was going bad in the film, and it seemed that they didn't want to have any positivity, I was afraid that something was going to happen to him as well. In the end, the events in the ending of the film weren't as bad as I thought, so overall I was okay with it.
One of the reasons why all the violent scenes struck me was that I had read previously that there was only one actor in the film. That is, the rest of the cast were actually just ordinary people who were selected to act in the film. Okay, they had a short training but they weren't professional actors. So it made, to my eyes, every single scene more real than it could ever be in a film. The reason why they did such a thing was actually because there weren't enough number of black actors to hire for the film.
After one recovers from watching the film, one can look back and think: what kind of "sick" mind one needs to be able to write/produce such a film? I do not know the writer of this film but this reminds me of the one and only filmmaker I have ever personally known. He has in fact been in my mind for the last few weeks as I think I miss him. I am not sure why I miss him but one might also say I never forgot him anyways.
I became friends with him without knowing his productions or the stories he wrote. What I want to talk about here is a writer's "dark side" that they use to come up with malicious characters in their stories. When I became friends with this person, I wasn't exactly aware that he was kind of famous, and like I said, I didn't know all of his work (or perhaps any of it). So I only saw him as the person he was at the time I met him. The more time I spent with him, the more it became clear to me that he was a genius (that's a strong word but I think he really was). What's better is he wouldn't brag about it, he would just let you discover it and show humility. Later, when I watched a series he produced, I was shocked to see how he could write characters who are so deeply psychotic. He wasn't afraid to write outside of the mainstream, and I must add, of course the show hadn't last long because it was really too heavy to be aired on television. When I say 'heavy', I mean things that are perhaps too dirty or ugly to think about, just like the stuff in City of God, but actually worse. Now, either I like being around dangerous people (which might be true) or I admired him for having this dark side and being able to channel it correctly. Why was he a genius? Well, maybe you think one just needs to unleash their own dirty desires and just have some courage to write those things, but no, it was clear that he was smart because he also didn't show any of his dark side in daily life. In fact, I later learned that he--allegedly--used to be mafia. Did this stop me from being friends with him? No. Is it because I like danger? Not exactly. I mean, if you have a friend, who you learn is/was a mafia, should you really run away or keep your cool and go with the flow so that your friend doesn't get you killed? I wasn't afraid of him though, so that's not why I had stayed.
Perhaps you can guess that this ex-mafia friend is my "old friend" who had been to jail, that I mentioned in a previous post. Now why is he an "old" friend? Was he old? Yes, he wasn't a young person. But also, why do I keep using past tense? That is because he is dead now---don't worry, it wasn't me who killed him, it was a heart attack who killed him. Although, I found it hard to believe that it was a heart attack knowing that he had an "archenemy" filmmaker in real life and the heart attack happened just when they were about to finish the production of a film (I think that "archenemy" is still alive so I won't give any names here at all). After hearing the news (yes, it was on the news), I had so many dreams in which he faked his own death and he was alive in hiding somewhere (because I knew he was capable of planning such a thing as he was very good at writing murder stories). I still find it hard to believe he is dead, actually. I live like he's still alive (modulo not being able to talk to him). I didn't go to his funeral and I didn't go to visit his grave either, and I believe I never will. So, now, going back to my sentence above "...but one might also say I never forgot him", I do think that "those that we love never truly leave us" even if they die. I thought a post on the film City of God would be a nice place to commemorate him. I am sure he knew this film and he would have had an excellent comment on or insight to the film. Oh well.
In the end, if you haven't seen this film yet, my only suggestions are the following. 1) Do not watch it if a kid is present in the room. Now, we must define "kid" here. Maybe this film is "+18" already but I think it should really be "+25" or something. 2) Do try to bear the pain until the end (as you might get sad while watching it), I think you might start feeling better at the end of the film. Personally, if the ending was different, I think I could have been traumatized by the film. The film was going extremely pessimistic and frustrating all hopes you might have about a single good thing happening, so I was really afraid of the ending, but then I was fine.
Apparently, this film is one of the films one must watch before one dies, according to some list. I always find statements like that a bit too strong, but perhaps it does make sense in this case. The editing of the film is one of the best I have ever seen. Moreover, the storytelling of it is unconventional (but in fact more natural, in my opinion). I must say though it is a bit hard to follow sometimes because it is done in an unconventional way and perhaps to completely understand it, one has to watch it again. I think the obstacle for me was that I was already dealing with a lot of worry (like begging the scenario "please don't kill this guy too!"), that I might have had lost track of the storyline.
I give 8.5/10.
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