Cynical Cinema

In 2002, City Of God rocked the movie world with what can be considered one of the greatest movies ever made. Fernando Meirelles directed this masterpiece, a sweeping saga of poverty, crime, and conscience in the slums of Rio De Janeiro. The film became an international sensation, and in his native Brazil, Meirelles sort of spun the movie off into a TV series called City of Men. Douglas Silva was one of the stars of City of God, playing the staggeringly scary and powerfully psychotic Lil’ Dice. He became the star of City of Men, the TV show, and he is the star of City of Men, the movie, which is a movie version of the TV version of City of God. Make sense so far? His character in this movie, however, is far removed from his violent psychopath character in the first film.

City of Men is a little more light-hearted than City of God, in that there is a little bit of humour. Silva plays Acerola (Ace), a young man who is struggling with fatherhood. Barely 18, he works at a watch-post to support his wife and infant son. We learn fairly fast that he is too young and unprepared for being a father, as he forgets his son at the beach, where he is rescued by the local gang crew, led by a charismatic leader named Midnight. The gang, while being a group of drug dealing, murderous thugs, is still fairly friendly with the community around it, and there is never a problem as Ace’s son gets returned to him through several sources. And we learn that Ace, while not being a part of the violence or the gang in any way, is still content to co-exist with them in the particular slum in which they live. Ace’s wife Cris, also a youngster herself, is threatening to move to Sao Paolo, where she can make a much better living than she can in the slum.

Ace’s best friend, the kid who has been closest to him since childhood, is more a brother than a buddy. Laranjinha is also struggling with fatherhood, but from the other side. He has never known his father, or even who he is. As his 18th birthday approaches, Laranjinha is desperately trying to find and meet his own dad. Ace is right at his side the whole time, helping him to discover who the man is and where he lives. When Laranjinha finally does find his father, however, the neighbourhood has gone up in smoke. Midnight’s second-in-command, Fasto, has decided to take over the gang for himself. Through a series of events too complicated to detail here, the new gang that installs itself at the top in the slums, and they believe that Ace has somehow been complicit in Midnight’s activities, warning him of the impending coup. Fasto’s gang is driving everyone related to Midnight out of the slums, which includes Laranjinha, Midnight’s cousin.

So now, even though neither of the kids has participated in any of the gang violence, and both have done everything they can to steer clear of the criminal world, they are involved whether they like it or not. Laranjinha goes to live with his new-found father, and Ace is forced to flee. With nowhere to turn, he ends up living with Midnight in another Brazilian slum, as Midnight prepares to retake his hill. As the movie works up to the inevitable, violent confrontation, the two kids at the centre of the story are swept up in something they can’t control. It all boils down to a question of whether their relationship is stronger than their violent surroundings. And I’m not going to give away the ending here.

City of Men works, but it suffers for being associated with City of God, which was an absolute masterwork. There is a reason there has never been a Casablanca II: The Rise of Captain Renaud, or a Citizen Kane II detailing the construction of Xanadu. Some films just stand alone, and City of God is one of them. Which is not to say that City of Men doesn’t work, or that it’s a poor film, it’s just not nearly as powerful as one could hope. The first film used mostly non-actors from Rio, which gave it an air of immediacy and brutal reality. This new film features actual actors, who do a great job, but some of that visceral feeling of the streets is lost. A fine movie, and even a very good one, City of Men has really one failing, and that is that it isn’t City of God. It comes out today, July 1st, courtesy of Alliance Films.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 30th, 2008 at 1:11 am and is filed under Douglas Silva, 2007, Paolo Morelli, Crime, Foreign, Drama. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.