Movie Report

Kendal Gast

ENV S 342

Movie Report

3-25-16

            I chose to watch City of God, directed by Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund, a Brazilian film about the City of God favela, or slum, in Rio de Janeiro.  Viewers are introduced to Rocket, a young boy caught between Lil Ze’s gang and the police.  Rocket dreams of becoming a photographer, but is held back by where he lives and his relationships to certain gang members.  The movie chronicles several other characters’ stories and is actually narrated by Rocket.  Set in the late seventies and early eighties, the film comments on issues like gang violence, the cyclical nature of it, friendship, community, opportunity, and death. 

            Viewers first watch Rocket literally caught between a trigger-happy gang of young boys and armed police in the beginning scene of the movie.  In order to explain his position, Rocket takes viewers back to the seventies when he was a boy, to when the City of God had just been established, and his older brother was in the local gang of three boys called the Tender Trio.  These opening scenes are also the only time we see Rocket’s parents and the only home he has ever had.  Viewers also learn about Rocket’s distaste for physical labor, violence, and fish markets.  The film progresses through violent conflicts that entangle all characters in the plot until we finally reach the scene shown at the beginning of the movie. 

            While the film primarily focuses on violence and the consequences individuals (and their relationships) face because of it, poverty and hunger are clearly on display.  Rocket’s older brother is a thief, and advises Rocket not to follow his example but instead become a laborer like their father and go to school.  For people in favelas, labor and thievery appear to be the only ways of obtaining money.  Education is not such a far-off dream (because Rocket does eventually attend an academy).  Thievery turns into drug trafficking and the associated gang violence.  Although everyone in the City of God appeared to be poor, not everyone seemed hungry.  This was an issue that was not well addressed.  Political and economic power was denied to most residents because of: their powerlessness in the face of corrupt police and absolutely no governing body of people.  Instead, power was set between the police and violent gangs.  Women appear infrequently throughout the film.  Rocket has a crush through most of the plot and a few other characters have lovers, but the usual subordination of women was evident at times with gang characters.  This is not a film about the environment, but the City of God does change from a sprawling collection of houses to an urban jungle within Rocket’s lifetime.  

            For the urban poor that live in the City of God, making sense of their confusing, stressful lives comes through a “model of authority” that is invoked though patriarchal family ideas (Penglase).  Dwellers of the City of God do not trust the local police because they are corrupt and view their activities of raiding homes as humiliating to the image of the man that inhabits it.  This labels him as a possible criminal that reduces his primary title of “worker” or “father”.  This reduction is a threat to his authority, and part of the “model of authority” is defending against attacks on the status of a man (Penglase).  This also hampers his ability to provide for his family, another aspect of the patriarchal family model. 

            In 2016, the way gangs operate within favelas has adapted to modern technology.  Incarcerated leaders of a gang can more effectively manage their members because of cell phones (Silva et al).  Not only that, but gang leaders do not have to worry about being killed since those that wish to kill them cannot get into jail - easily.  Complicit members of the gang lifecycle also contribute to a black market of cell phones that are typically illegally used (Silva et al).  Usage and possession of cell phones, based on Silva et al. study, displays the favela residents’ lack of education (2011).  This is a continuing problem for city government because they refuse to legally recognize these communities. 

            The favelas of Rio de Janeiro have recently been under attack by city and state legislatures.  Ever since the announcement in 2008 that Rio was to host the 2016 Olympics, several thousand people have been forcibly removed from their homes (Mattos).  Notably, in Morro da Favela, up to a third the neighborhood’s structures will be demolished for an aerial tramway (Mattos).  In response, the favela populations are starting to organize themselves and have recruited aide organizations and the international media for support (Mattos). 

            Is taking over favelas for urban development morally acceptable?  Part of the categorical imperative says that people should not be treated as a means to an end, and perhaps that is what the favela populations are thinking.  But the city and state government, on the other hand, could effectively argue that utilitarianism is a better reason for their actions.  And in end, perhaps it is the best reason for everyone. 

Works Cited

Mattos, Romulo Costa. 2013. Shantytown Dwellers’ Resistance in Brazil’s First Republic

            (1890-1930): Fighting for the Right of the Poor to Reside in the City of Rio de

            Janeiro, 83. Pp. 54-69. Apr 1 2016.

Penglase, Ben. 2010. The Owner of the Hill: Masculinity and Drug-Trafficking in Rio de

            Janeiro, Brazil. The Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology, 15

            (2). Pp. 217-337. Apr 1 2016.

Silva, Adriana. Sutko, Daniel. Salis, Fernando. Silva, Claudio. 2011. Mobile Phone

            Appropriation in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. New Media & Society, 13

            (3). Pp. 411-426. Apr 1 2016.