City of God (Cidade de Deus) - "Now I'm a Playboy"

Cidade de Deus (2002)

H: This is a movie we first watched together when you were dog sitting. What struck you about the movie this time around?

K: It's different than I remember. It's stylized - the cuts and the camera work is a bit flashy. The story is about drug dealers' power in the slums. You see the violence between them and the police, but really the dealers are just trying to take money from the boss, the government, the middle class.

H: We don't get to know any police officers and really, as you say, the movie dwells on the war between the dealers and not the war between the police and the dealers.

K: The police are interchangeable. There are three key figures in the crime world - Carrot, L'ill Ze, and Knockout Ned - and we get each of their stories. It's smart that there's no police story because it would take you out of the slum environment. You're only taken out of the slum when you're saved by the journalists just as Rocket is. What do you think about the division of the movie into stories?

H: The story of the City of God is the story of individuals and who replaces them, particularly in the crime world, with the exception of Rocket, who's consistently in the story.

K: Rocket's the Nick of "The Great Gatsby". Nick is the perfect example of the outside narrator who tells the story of someone else, when the real story is about Nick. Rocket's just doing this on multiple levels. Everyone he talks about goes through a change, but the real change is what's happening to Rocket.

H: So there are lots of Gatsbys in the movie - L'il Ze, Blackie, Benny, etc.

K: I think of the story being told like this: Drew and I were in a car, we got in a car crash. We got out and found Sally in the other car. Drew collapsed and had to be taken to the hospital, but first let me tell you the story of Sally.The motel scene and meeting Knockout Ned are good examples of this.

H: We're introduced to characters at their crisis points and then the movie takes us back to where they're first relevant to the story of the City of God.

K: You described it as a story of individuals and the individuals replacing them. These characters sound interchangeable. Why do you think they're shown as individuals and police aren't?

H: Because the police are a constant, faceless force whereas there's more variability in the so-called hoods. Look at L'il Ze and Benny. Benny really shouldn't be a hood - he's a uniter and fun-loving guy. L'il Ze even as a little kid was a cold-blooded killer only interested in violence and crime. Also, the police aren't from the City of God for the most part. They're from the city proper and exist in another world.

K: I did not give the narrator enough credit when I first saw this film. Rocket's character is fully formed and interesting. I like that he's a photographer for the obvious reason - because he shoots just as the hoods that he grew up with shoot. It's an interesting way to cope with what's going on, and it's much better than him being a writer.

H: Why do you think you resisted the Rocket character when you first saw this movie?

K: I think the first time I saw this movie, I was really moved by the fact that little kids had guns and were shooting people. That left a bigger impression on me than the Rocket character. So I didn't think much of him - when I thought of the movie I thought of little kids killing people.

H: So because Rocket's life was tame when compared with "the Runts", Rocket felt unnecessary or trivial in the story of the city? He seemed essential to me because he represents how different the professional employment track and the drug dealer track are.

K: His problems involved losing his virginity, scoring some weed, and these are trivial when compared with kids having to shoot each other.

H: So how do we reconcile the seemingly trivial problems of the main character with the more dire problems of the city and the dealers?

K: Rocket is the example of how there is still choice in the City of God. He chooses not to get involved with the hoods. And so he chooses not to have those problems. He's a more empathetic character because of the nature of his problems and his attitude. He also recognizes that his problems aren't as difficult.

H: The mere fact that he tells his story through other peoples' stories shows us that he understands his role and the scope of his problems. I don't think he can truly choose not to have some of the problems that hoods have because of where he lives and the frequent interactions/confrontations with hoods.

K: We're introduced to people who switch roles. The three thieves at the start of the movie choose different paths - one the church, one his family, one crime. Knockout Ned is a worker who through a series of events becomes a hood. The movie shows us people can change. Do you think there's any optimism in that?

H: Two of the three thieves change in a more positive direction, hastened by fear of punishment. Ned's change is profoundly negative, spurred by revenge. I think it just shows us that violence makes us capable of anything. I don't see much optimism in these changes. Even Rocket's success at the end doesn't seem optimistic to me because from the start he seemed to be on the right track. I don't think he was capable of becoming a hood. His brother's murder failed to incite him to revenge. He admits as much to us when faced with the opportunity to kill L'il Ze.

K: What you say suggests that Rocket doesn't change.

H: His circumstances change, but as a character he doesn't seem to. He improves his lot through his skill with a camera and some lucky breaks at the newspaper.

K: Because you don't think Rocket changes, is this a poor example of an outside narrator? Is he the narrator because he knows all these people or could anyone have been the narrator?

H: I don't think he has to change to be a good narrator. He has Keat's negative capability, a way of being in the background and just observing. He does exert his personality in the way that he tells stories.

K: Maybe Rocket's change is that he's always had one foot in the hood world and one foot in the working world. His change comes when he plants himself firmly into photo-journalism, because there are moments where he could have become a hood, but then the bus guy's too cool to steal from, the girl at the counter's too cute, the guy in the car is cool. That's what helps him. The runts remember Rocket as being cool also and don't bother him. Is this an honor code?

H: Yeah, there's definitely the cool guy characteristic applied to people that justifies not harming them. That's why Benny was so successful and such a loss to everybody, despite him being allied with L'il Ze. Benny represents the tragedy of the hood - that even when you try to get out you can't. I like when he says "Now I'm a playboy".

K: Benny is a good example of the change that can happen in the slums, where he changes his hair, his style of clothing, but he can't quite escape the consequences that come with the territory.

H: What do you think about the chicken running away at the beginning? What does that mean?

K: It starts as a celebration, but then they take out their guns and start shooting, so the chicken has to survive the ordeal. They're killing a chicken while the other chicken runs away, so I think it says a lot about the people who live there and have to keep surviving while the drug dealers keep grabbing for power. It's like Rocket - he's taken the opportunity to leave the slum.

What do you think about the director using cuts to make the audience believe that the opposite of what happened happened? An example being that at one point it looks like Rocket and his pal killed the guy from Sao Paolo that they were going to rob, but they didn't.

H: It goes toward the root of cinema, what differentiates movies from photographs. It's the ability to do something on film, stop the camera, change something while the camera's off, and then turn it back on to the mystification of the audience. In that scene, it makes us believe the worst about Rocket - that he's capable of murder and will become a hood, which thankfully turns out not to be true.

K: I was really impressed with the casting of unknowns in this movie and how they added authenticity to the film, which reminds me of The Battle of Algiers (La Battaglia di Algeri) (1966). Also, hoodlum children are really cute.

Which reminds me of a news article about the group of third graders that plotted to kill their teacher. They all had a different role to play - one was to close the window shade, another bash her on the head with a paper weight, one was to bring a steak knife from home to stab her. Very "Lord of the Flies".

H: I'm reminded of that movie too. It's the whole repressed society lashing out against its oppressors, but I think it's also the unknown actors that actually come from the society and circumstances rendered in the movie. Many of the actors are from the slums of Rio De Janeiro, just as the actors from "The Battle of Algiers" are from the Casbah in Algiers. It's almost too real for cinema. What really creaped me out was how closely the actor giving Knockout Ned's speech to the media resembled the actual footage of the real Knockout Ned shown at the end of the movie. This stuff is real - Rio's a warzone.