City of God

Explore how a deeper analysis of cinematography and/or aesthetics techniques can deepen contextual understanding of your chosen film. 

• Anaylse 'City of God' with an emphasis on the narrative 'arc' of a key character.
• Prepare a powerpoint/blog 
• Refer to core specifically (and in detail)
• Research contextual issues and apply to your discussion

Contextual issues:

• lots of poverty: poverty in Rio was really low. They show clips of the Runts and other characters bathing in dirty water because they live in the favela.
• None of the characters know life outside the favela so when Rocket goes to work at the newspaper agency he is becoming more positive because he's achieving his dreams. This also links to the theme of "no escapism" because even though he can't escape from the favela he can escape from following in his brothers footsteps. In the end scene Rocket has his camera and captures Melonhead being a corrupt cop.  
• Drugs was a massive theme throughout the film "City of God". This is shown in the serval drug scenes in the same house. This allows us to see who the house has deteriorated, this is because drug raid's got worse during the 3 decades from the 60's to the 80's. Verisimilitude is used during these scenes to shows the reality of there lives in the favela. This scene also shows the change in power because it shows all of the different characters taking charge on the drug den. This scene links to poverty throughout the film because it shows how the drugs effected the way of peoples life because they couldn't afford to look after the house because they spent the drug money on guns. The reason they spent money on guns because they had to protect themselves.

Opening scene anaylsis:

"City of God' opens with the mise-en-scene of a knife being sharpened on a stone, this connotes the danger of the slum. This is important because it represents that everything in the City of God is used as a weapon. The opening frames uses editing to show the claustrophobic atmosphere of the favela. The non-diegetic soundtrack that is used shows the harsh sound of the knife on the stone. The non-diegetic music shows the juxtaposition between violence and celebration; a theme of the film as tragedy often happens when the characters are at there happiest. The soundtrack also shows a believable verisimilitude as most people are familiar with the Brazillian music but unfamiliar with the concept of child gangsters therefore they use verisimilitude to make it more believable. 

The miese-en-scene begins to reveal that a chicken is being slaughtered to eat. The chicken is slowly revealed to build suspense for the viewer and a sense of threat. This creates tension for the audience as they are forced to eagerly anticipate what will be revealed after the black intercuts as part of the enigma code as the black periods in between leave the audience to contemplate what is going to happen in the next frame. 

The dead chickens are used as conventions for the children in the City of God who run around like headless chickens; causing chaos with their guns and murder. The chicken that escapes is a metaphor for the main protagonist; Rocket who escapes from the rest of the children in his slum in search for a better life. 

However the calm is not to last for long as the villain in the story orders for the wild children of the City of God to chase the chicken; this represents how Lil Ze brings chaos during the course of the film. Lil Ze is shot in a blurry way but still from below to show his power; however the blur show instability of his psychopathic mind. A more non-diegetic soundtrack of drums is played to interact with the chase scene. The chase scene is disturbing because it shows a mies-en-scene of many children with guns shooting at something as worthless as a chicken; this adds to the enigma code of how the children's lives have gotten to such a wretched state that this seems like a normal and acceptable part of there lives. This contributes to the genre conventions because chases are often used in gangster movies but often with cars; what is effective because these children are too young to drive but not too young to shoot a gun. The chase scene brings excitement to the film through its chaos. The mies-en-scene of most of the chase is guns and a poverty world. The city is full of rickety pieces of wood and the walls are crumbling around the children with graffiti sprawled across them; the city is a wasteland with no hope.