City Of God

Review

The film I chose to do review on, was the City Of God, by the Brazilian director; Danial Rezende. The
film was nominated best film editing of 2002 and definitely changed the world of cinema, to this day.

The opening scene doesn’t waist any time as it automatically sets the scene of the Brazilian slums it
shows the cutting of food to then a close up shot of the chicken’s reaction. As the chicken struggle to
escape it, shows a fast sequence of different shots of close ups of the food, dancing as well as the
chicken attempting to escape while being intime with the fast beat Brazilian music. It does this to
make the audience feel a sense of panic of what the chicken is feeling.

The music then stops when the chicken breaks loose which creates a feeling of relief and then the
chicken is wondering around. Which leads to a close up shot of one of the main characters, he is
introduced, Lil’Z. An intense chase scene consists of Lil’Z with more faster beat Brazilian music. The
editing uses a contrast to another scene, in the same area with the leading character (Rocket) and
his friend, talking about what would happen if Lil’Z saw him. Both scene twine together as Rocket
and Liz both meet on the same road with the chicken being in the middle of them. They use slow
motion as they zoom into LiL’Z and Rockets face to capture both characters facial expressions of
seeing one another. The scene changes then they decided to use a spin around to show a flash back
of Rocket.

Another part of the film where editing is used perfectly, is when Lil Dice was brought along to a
robbery even though he was still at a young age. The older gang he was with told Lil Dice to be on
lookout however gave him a gun to fire when police came. As the robbery took place, Lil Dice fired
the gun which signalled the gang to flee the scene, as the police force arrived. The gang went to go
pick up Lil Dice but realised he was missing. So, believed he was taken by police.

Later on, a scene is shown of the whore house it shows that all the witnesses that where there
during the time have been killed in cold blood, it lets audience blind eye believe that the gang killed
everyone at the scene. Furthermore. We then find the true story that Lil Dice, fired the signal for the
gang to leave and then goes into the building and kills everyone While laughing and enjoys every
shot. This becomes a shock to the audience as they believed that it was the gang who killed them as
we brushed the idea of Lil Dice doing so as he was so young. Which in my opinion is a very clever
way to shock and show the audience just by simply moving the time of each scene to trick them.
Which concludes from that point there that he shows true evil and villainess it also shows how far he
would go to become top boy.

Overall, its clear to see that Rezende does not follow the editing rules of cinema as he breaks the
boundaries. Instead of using the plane cut to each scene he uses a verity of transitions including the
fade transition a few times. He also uses split screens where it shows two scenes in one which I’ve
never seen in cinema myself. It’s a very clever way to combine two scenes into one. The filter that
the director uses to really exaggerated tones of heat when its set in the village out side the city of
god.