City of God

I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Filming the undead

The Barista CollectiveLeave a comment

Join us every week for a trip into the weird and wonderful world of trailers. Whether it’s the first teaser for the latest instalment in your favourite franchise, an obscure preview for a strange indie darling, whether it’s good, bad, ugly or just plain weird – your favourite pop culture baristas are there to tell you what they think.

True crime sells, but it’s ethically dodgy at the best of times and needs to be handled with intelligence and sensitivity. Did Bob Fosse succeed with his final film Star 80 about the murder of actress Dorothy Stratten? Check out this week’s Six Damn Fine Degrees by Alan to find out what he thinks.

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The Rear-View Mirror: City of God (2002)

MegeLeave a comment

Each Friday we travel back in time, one year at a time, for a look at some of the cultural goodies that may appear closer than they really are in The Rear-View Mirror. Join us on our weekly journey into the past!

The first scene of Fernando Meirelles’ and Katia Lund’s City of God starts with a chicken trying to escape the frying pan, and it ends with the standoff between two warring drug gangs in Brazil’s Cidade de Deus, the poorest quarter of Rio, where the politicians put the lowest classes in the Sixties so the rich wouldn’t have to look at them. Cidade de Deus doesn’t have electricity nor water, and it’s almost impossible to get out, not geographically, but socially: if you are born there, you will most likely die there.

Six minutes into the movie, we already have to cope with three story strands. There is something of Melville in its structure: I want to tell you about Lil’ Zé, but in order to make you understand, I have to tell you about the Tender Trio, and so I have to start with how my brother… You get the idea. But City of God, based on a novel by Paulo Lins, sounds confusing, but it’s not. It’s fast-paced, but it’s never in a rush.

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