The Movie Book

308 CITY OF GOD

00:10

The Tender Trio rob a motel

with Li’l Dice as lookout. We

later find out that Lil’ Dice

went back afterward and

shot everyone in the motel.

00:32

At the beach, Rocket

photographs his friends,

and meets Angélica for

the first time. He buys

pot to impress her.

1:09

Benny is shot by Blackie at

his farewell celebration. Blackie

was aiming at Li’l Zé. Carrot

then kills Blackie.

1:40

Rocket’s photo of Li’l Zé

appears in the newspaper.

He is offered a job, and

Li’l Zé is pleased by

the publicity.

00:30

As he tries to run from

the police, Shaggy is shot dead.

Rocket sees his first camera as

a man photographs the body.

00:50

Li’l Dice becomes Li’l Zé

and starts a killing spree to

take over the drug business

in the City of God.

00:00 00:15 00:30 00:45 01:00 01:15 01:30 02:00

1:26

Knockout Ned joins

forces with Carrot in a

war against Lil’ Ze. A year

later, the favela is divided.

1:52

Knockout Ned is killed by

Otto, the son of a murdered

security guard. Li’l Zé is

gunned down by the runts.

Minute by minute

into the central character, with

other characters entering only

when they matter to the overall

story of the slum.

The city as fate

One of the main themes Meirelles

explores is the favela’s corrosive

effect on everyone it touches. The

violence it spawns does not simply

stay among the criminals, but

rather is all consuming and

perpetuates a culture of suffering

for all the inhabitants. Meirelles

presents the City of God as an

entity in itself, a place that allows

the wicked to thrive and the

innocent to perish. This is

demonstrated starkly in the

movie’s opening sequence, in

which two chickens are about

to be plucked and cooked by Li’l

Zé’s gang. A knife flashes as it is

sharpened against a rock. One

chicken flinches as the other is

killed, and makes a break for it,

but there is no escape.

When Knockout Ned tries

to draw a line between being a

hoodlum and his noble vigilante

mission against Li’l Zé, the City

of God intervenes, just as it does

when Shaggy tries to flee the

criminal life in the name of love, or

when Benny decides that he’s too

good a person to be a gangster.

Each time a character gives in to

their better nature, that character

is punished. They are protagonists

in their own Greek tragedies, with

the city in the role of Fate.

Journalistic ethics

City of God is a gangster story,

an impassioned piece of social

commentary, and an ambitious

work of visual cinema. Rocket’s

role as a photographer also allows

the movie to touch upon the ethics

of journalism in a war zone, or in

this case, the act of dramatizing

very real problems of poverty and

violence. This is highlighted when

Rocket confronts a newspaper for

The sacrificial chicken

conveys with the force of a

blunt instrument how cheap

life has become in the ghetto.

Peter Bradshaw

The Guardian

Relationships, allegiances, and enmities

Carrot Li’l Zé

Knockout

Ned

Loves

Friends

Kills

Kills

Team up against Li’l Zé

Enemies

Rocket

(Narrator)

Angélica Goose

Benny Shaggy Clipper

Ned’s

Girlfriend

Blackie

Brothers

Partners in crime

The Tender Trio

Brothers Friends Kills

Boyfriend

Rapes

Boyfriend