Film Club #21

Why remain in the City of God when God has forgotten you?

In the first scene, we see a chicken escaping and being chased by an armed gang, while the poor bird runs desperate, trying to survive. I found that opening scene hilarious and I was laughing a lot... Little did I know, there would be no more laughs during this movie.

And actually, the characters are a lot like this chicken, trying to run but unable to escape from the claws of Zé Pequeno.

In the City of God —that was the name of the housing project the brazilian government created in the 60's— were we meet all these characters and their evolution over the decades.
The violence in this slum is brutal. The whole rawness of it, the cold blood murders, the just-for-fun killings terrified me more than any horror movie could... Cause those are real life events.
Some scenes where truly disturbing for me and I felt awful, but I couldn't take my eyes of this.

The editing of this movie was superb and the fantastic movements of the handheld camera added a lot to the suspense and tension City of God puts on us.

We are deeply absorbed by the roughness and frenzy of the favela, of the City of God, which is a very ironic name, cause this characters are in a living hell.