Brianair's City of God Analysis

In Brainair's article, City of God, he elaborates on background knowledge of the film and summarizes the film as whole while explaining the stories of two of the main characters in the film, Knockout Ned and Li'l Ze. In order to show a character's relevance in the film, you need to hear the backstory of another character(s). The story of the Tender Trio create backstory for Li'l Ze while Li'l Ze's story creates backstory for Knockout Ned. Then all three of their stories contribute to Rocket's life story.

The main ideology communicated in the film is based on how violent a character is in the film. From what I have noticed and read from a past article, the characters are place on a social hierarchy from their acts of violence. Li'l Ze stands at the top of the pyramid and is feared by everyone including rival gangs and also the police. While on the other hand, Rocket is at the bottom and not really feared by anyone because he is not violent at all. In a way the ideology communicated in the film can be closely compared to Social Darwinism or "survival of the fittest."

This film has been compared to films such as Pulp Fiction (1994) and Goodfellas (1990), but the author in the Brianair article brings up the conclusion that, "neither of these films actually deal with social problems or issues." I partially disagree because I feel that the ideology that was communicated in Goodfellas was similar to the one I brought up in the 2nd paragraph about City of God. The whole "survival of the fittest" theme goes hand in hand with the Mob/Gangster genre which is why both films can fall under that genre. Historical reference can be direct because this is a true story, but I think it can also relate back to the Vietnam War. The main character Rocket even gave a direct quote saying, "you got used to living in Vietnam," which is implying the favelas as a warzone.

The genre of this film really interests me the most for my research project because I feel there are multiple aspects of the film that create multiple genres. For instance, you can follow Rocket's storyline which gives a "coming of age" genre. Or you can follow Li'l Ze and Knockout Ned's storyline which follows under the Mob/Gangster genre. A lot could be elaborated on if I found films within these genres and narrowed them down to find a film extremely similar to City of God.