Last night Erci was finally in the mood for a film, so we sat down to watch Cidade de Deus (aka: City of God) which has been on our to be seen pile from Netflix for months (eeks; not enough time for movies!?). In a word: Wow!
| Warning: this film is not for minors in any sense, ever. It is a graphic depiction of life and death in the “Cidade de Deus (City of God).. housing project built in the 1960’s that–in the early 80’s–became one of the most dangerous places in Rio de Janeiro.” (quote from IMDB’s plot summary). Excellent and thought provoking film, but also shocking violence and language. |
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One quote that kept floating back into my head afterwards, from the documentary that accompanies the film a police officer says: “we (the police) are the only state agency that sets foot in the favelas, the only agency with any presence at all there” – and that, if it is accurate, explains it all. If greater society does not value it’s poor, it’s youth, it’s people; those people will not value themselves. Where is society’s great equalizer: solid public education? The kids growing up in the favelas have no hope because their country does not even invest in them.
The reviewers on IMDB have done a much better job that I can of reviewing this awesome film, but I give it another endorsement and want people to think about the impact of walling themselves off from the poor and forgetting about them. As American’s jump into suburb-enclaves (burbclaves in the language of Neal Stephenson), and try to cut their tax burden by ignoring and cutting off programs for the poor; I wish they would at least think on the possible results of their own selfish actions. One possibility is the kind of violence we see in Cidade de Deus.
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