In the video City of God – Ten Years Later, the actor of Knockout Ned is interviewed about the change in Brazil. He claims that society hasn’t evolved for people of color. The LGBTQ community and women have become stronger, but not people of color. This again, follows the idea of infinite oppression and poverty depicted in the film. [I like the way that this comment draws from a secondary source to support its point and the way that it recognizes that race, unlike in Bicycle Thieves or Los olvidados, also factors into the poverty equation.]
City of God [the place] is a product of the corrupt capitalist society that many black and brown people have suffered at the hands of the white overlords and systemic racism. [Brazil was the last country to abolish slavery in the Western hemisphere (1888). The story of racism in modern Brazil is complex and the favela phenomenon is certainly linked to an entrenched bigotry and discrimination toward afro and afro-indigenous Brazilians by Brazilians of European ancestry. How should we think of the complete avoidance of this topic in the film? I don’t think this question has an easy answer, and it would make a great topic for the final research paper, as well as other related topics, like colorism in the film (is it deliberate, and if so, to what end?).]
The film seems obsessed with the idea of the individual interacting with society, using wide angle shots and close-ups to show the individual and the city. [This comment exemplifies very nicely the point that Buñuel makes at the end of “Cinema, Instrument of Poetry,” which I think captures the difference between Buñuel’s cinematic vision and Zavattini’s.]
What stood out even more to me, though, was that instead of an aesthetic of depiction in which the camera is an observer to the action, director Fernando Meirelles’ camera is highly active, highly involved, and almost acts as a character in itself within the film. [I like the way that the student brings in something that I wrote on the board and from there discusses the way that the director departs from this technique that is characteristic of neorealism. Being a postmodern neorealist film, there are several departures.]
However, one character who does not take revenge is Rocket, who happens to be the only one to get out of the cycle of poverty. The closure of the film therefore offers a solution to the problem of poverty. [I like the simplicity and astuteness of this comment. Rocket laments, at one point, not taking revenge when he had the opportunity. His not doing so does appear to be consequential for him. It suggest to me that resentment is being portrayed as what motivates of the other characters who are condemned to remain in the labyrinth (both physical and psychological).]
The photographs Rocket takes do not highlight the backstories of each individual in the image; the photos only tell the story of what happened in that moment. …. These horrific events will forever be immortalized through only one lens. Through shifting the camera so that it sees only [through] the eyes of Rocket, the directors demonstrate the problems of such a removed, distant view of reality. [I like the atuteness of this observation, and I think that it is supported by the visual language in the scene leading up to Lil Ze’s death as Rocket follows the chase up the hill and takes pictures through the symmetrical gaps in the cement wall, which prevents him from being seen and also prescribes the angle and perspective of his own seeing.]
I think that the makers of this film made an interesting choice to turn Rocket into a photographer because the audience is quite literally viewing the story “through his lens.” [This is exactly right, and this exemplifies the tendency in postmodern cinema to use metanarratives and to make the audience aware of the mediated nature of storytelling.]
I do know, however, that the film called to my attention my act of viewing, my role as a voyeur through the conscious use of the camera motif. [I like self-awareness of this reflection along with the recognition that we as viewers are often situated within the narrative. Postmodern films often make more explicit the viewers’ role.]
As he is running, we see through the camera lens that Rocket is carrying and it is an essential scene because it shows us that not only is Rocket seeing this fight from a lens or from afar, but that we the audience are experiencing this whole situation through a lens. It demonstrates tu us that we are of no help to the, and they are the ones experiencing it first hand. [My previous comment also applies here.]
Lil’ Ze used to be Lil’ Dice and when he was that, people looked down upon him… [I love this comment because it makes me finally understand the name. Details, details, details.]
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