City of God -- 2002 -- R

Here's another one of those top films of all time that I just had to watch at some point to see what all the fuss was about. What I found was a film based in some reality about the slums, a kid who didn't want to be there, and everyone who perpetuated the nightmare.

City of God places emphasis on a particular piece of storytelling that that majority of the films regarded as great place their emphasis: character. There are a lot of characters in City of God and nearly every single one of them gets their moment in the spotlight. Sure, we don't have a bunch of lovable hoodlums here; nearly all of them are pretty despicable, but where the film begs us to look is at their situation which is covered almost as thoroughly.

There are a few redeemable characters in the film that have relatable qualities. These characters are given some redemption sequences to show that they don't want to be in the situation they're in right before they meet their end. In fact, Shaggy and Benny were both trying to leave to a better life when they are killed.

Really, this film was more about the characters than any kind of plot, which takes a backseat here. He see the lives of the characters unfold little by little, one by one and each follows their individual plot, though those individual plots tie into a larger picture which is more or less the rise and fall of Lil Ze. Our main character, Rocket, is pretty much the observer to all the events in the story; he's the everyman character who tells the story, but it is Lil Ze that the story really revolves around in what gets him his rise to power and what he does wrong to bring himself down. Throughout this, on neither side of the fence, is Rocket, who is just trying to avoid all the gang stuff and get out of the City of God.

This is a film that takes some patience to watch (especially if you don't speak Portuguese and are reading the subtitles -- let me thank my Japanese horror for the experience there), but it uses the convention of showing you the end before reaching back to the beginning, so you wonder about that scene as the lives of the characters unfold. I do find it to be one of the better films out there and definitely worth watching.