CIDADE DE DEUS NOTES

(September 2021, second watch):

0-10 mins:
- Flashing images of knife being sharpened- first image, immediate foregounding of
violence
- Knife used for food and becomes part of a rhythmic beat underpinning Brazilian street
music- violence is an innate part of every day life and culture in Rio
- Chicken watches another chicken be brutally killed, cooked and dismembered- it is
tethered to the stall (trapped in brutal environment) but escapes, chased by Lil Z and
his gang. Look at parallels between chicken and Rocket, both stuck between gang and
police, and the character with surname Galinha
- Post modern direction- freeze frame and voiceover disrupts conventional temporal
chronology of narrative and adds to already chaotic sensory landscape
- Image of football being shot for fun around children- encapsulates the dissonant
closeness of violence and childhood in Rio
- ‘goose’
- ‘don’t be a chicken’
- Context to the ironically named ‘City of God’, a housing project in the 60s with no
electricity or paved roads, away from the picture perfect coast of Rio

10-20 mins: Lil Di’ce’s plan at the motel

- ‘you from the church?’- to a man having a scandalous affair in a dirty motel room,
‘yes’- CORRUPTION in every facet of society, link to ironic title, brief semi-
humorous allusion to corruption of world outside favela
- Shots of people killed in motel silently pan- the complete absence of noise contrasts
with the normally hectic auditory landscape of shouting, gunshots, music and
clattering
- Boys in trio de ternura part saying ‘In God we Trust’
- One of the gang (who hurts his ankle) goes back to the church, abandoning the
hoodlum life
- a police bullet lethally wounds an innocent worker in the street, who walks just
behind the actual criminal, and without a trace of regret or compassion they say they
will make him a hoodlum now- covering up their mistake
20-30 mins:
- wife is killed by husband for having affair

30-40:

- Shaggy’s death while attempting to flee to start a new, more moral life- shot by police
 - Normalised death- Rocket and his friend are on their way to school- they stop to look
at their friend and the other one says ‘let’s go to school’
- 70s beach scene with Angelica and Thiago- racial diversity in friendship group is
evident
- They are only 16 yet discussing coke vs joints
- Blacky (also must be 16) deals weed and has a gun- childhood and innocence dies an
early death in the City of God
- Racial identity: a lot of the nicknames derive from race- eg. ‘Blacky’ and ‘Carrot’
40-50:
- Story of Lil Dice/ Lil Z
- Psychopath- laughs when mass murdering
- Shoots Goose mercilessly and without warning
- Montage shows flashing images of Lil Dice from perspective of victim laughing while
shooting people- with each shot, he gets older, until him and Benny reach the present
day
- ‘with each hit, Lil Z grew up’- JUXTAPOSITION OF VIOLENCE AND
CHILDHOOD/ MATURING
- Bizarre candle lit demon shrine? ‘Why stay in the City of God where God has
forgotten you’?- irony
- The devil preacher man blesses Lil Dice with power linked to an amulet and a new
name, Lil Z- suspicion runs rife in an uneducated, hopeless community
- Showing the tense meeting of Blacky and Lil Z from three different perspectives after
a bit more context is shown each time- we learn of the history of the apartment,
lending the audience a notion of the violent volatility of the drugs trade, then of Lil
Z’s murderous and power hungry campaign for total control of the City of God’s
rackets- the final revelation makes the meeting even more tense when it is shown for
the third time
- Benny and Lil Z’s psychopathy- they laugh when mocking the death of Rocket’s
brother Goose in front of Rocket when they killed him
50-60
- The Runts pester Rocket and Angelica for toke- children under age of 10 smoking a
joint
- Strange dynamic between Thiago and Benny- Benny is his drug dealer and takes a
gun and cycles after Thiago, they share what superficially appears to be a rare
moment of brotherly banter- having a bike race, but Thiago ensures that Benny wins,
probably because he knows who holds the power and gun
- Benny reinvents himself as a ‘playboy’, but is mocked by Lil Z and the rest of the
gangsters, to which Benny fires warning shots and becomes angry
- ‘tell the kids that in my ghetto nobody robs or rapes’- Lil Z to Carrot- irony! Attempt
to enforce law/ peace in the most lawless of environments by the most lawless man
1 hr to 1 hr 10:
 - DISTURBING. The kids just want to be respected and included by Lil Z, so Steak
says ‘I’m just going out with my friends mum’- friends meaning Lil Z and his gang
- Lil Z claims he will not shoot any of the Runts, but cruelly punishes a toddler in
nappies and young child who have been left behind by asking whether they want to be
shot in the hand or foot as a punishment- when they both choose hand, he shoots them
in the foot, then forcing Steak to choose one to kill- Steak kills the older child, clearly
traumatised
- The quick transition to shots of life in the market and music- horrific violence
juxtaposed with vibrant normality of daily life demonstrates the endemic nature of
violence in the favela- police are not called, life does not stop, Lil Z is not hunted
down- normality simply persists- there is something even more disturbing about the
fact that the audience is forced to experience strange sense of normality but peppered
by horrific violence- breaking down social divisions by breaking down spatial
divisions/ stereotypes
-
- Financial desperation- in his supermarket job, Rocket is paid so poorly that he wishes
to be laid off so he can use the severance pay- but even when he is laid off, he is not
given this small privilege
- Inescapability of life in the favela- while trying to better himself by working in a
supermarket outside CdD, even though he is not in with the gang, Rocket is fired by
the manager without evidence on basis of suspicion
- ‘Honesty doesn’t pay, sucker’
- Rocket, a decent boy, is forced into ‘flirting with crime’ and breaking his promise to
Goose- he takes out and nearly uses his brother’s gun
- Yet Knockout Ned (bus ticket man) is too lovely for Rocket ‘He was such a cool guy’
and his friend to try to intimidate- it is also revealed he is ex army and does karate,
and wants to leave the ghetto as soon as possible, advising the boys to study to escape
the life of cops and hoodlums in the CdD
- They revert to hold-ups- their endearing inexperience is tragic- they practise what to
say before going to the bakery- ‘What do we say? This is a hold up?’
- Then they fail to hold up the bakery ‘She was too sweet’
- Cinematographic device- after Rocket suggests that they will target a paulistano in a
car, the shot cuts to police officers identifying a body off the road- making it look like
this is Rocket’s work, but Rocket, his friend and the paulistano are then filmed driving
past the scene
1 hr 10- 1hr 20
- Blacky has ‘avenged’ an injustice by murdering his girlfriend brutally with a rock
inside the ghetto (this is the scene the police officers were at)- Lil Z threatens him
with a gun but Benny, potentially softened by love, tells Lil Z to stop, kicking Blacky
out. Benny tells Lil Z he needs a girlfriend
- Benne and Angelica decide to follow ‘peace and love’ ad Benne has a goodbye party-
inviting all different crowds from the favela- he is ‘too cool to be a hoodlum’. Pun
and dark foreshadowing in title of the chapter ‘A Despedida de Bene’- it is not his
farewell to move cities, but his farewell to life
 - Lil Z, as psychopathic and evil as he appears, is almost presented as pitiable- he is a
loser, loner, whose only friend is leaving him and who cannot pick up girls or dance.
His anger and rejection manifests itself in aggression and bullying, but underneath he
is another victim of the brutality of the place he was ‘raised’ in- the CdD
- Amongst the chaotic strobe lit dance floor argument between Benne and Lil Ze, a
gunshot is heard- Blacky has shot Bene accidentally
- Everyone flees, music off- lights still flash, and Lil Ze is griefstricken, shouting ‘It’s
your fault’ (it is actually Lil Ze’s fault) at Angelica and telling her to leave- he
screams over his friend’s body and fires shots at the ceiling
- Carrot kills Blacky when he goes to Carrot for help- avenges Benne
1 hr 20
- Lil Ze vs Knockout Ned- Lil Ze tries to intimidate Ned’s girlfriend into kissing him,
but she says ‘have you seen what you look like’- it is the ‘good handsome guy vs bad
ugly guy’
- Cross cut to Lil Ze raping Lil Ze’s girlfriend- ironically, earlier he said ‘in my ghetto
nobody robs or rapes’
- Ned says ‘why didn’t that fucker kill me’
- Cross cut to Lil Ze- ‘why didn’t I kill that fucker?’
- The utterly SENSELESS nature of killing is evident by now. Ned’s girlfriend has
been raped and brother killed because Lil Ze failed to hit on her
- Lil Ze without hesitation shoots his right hand man Tuba in the face after Tuba’s
ramblings about them being brothers with the same injury, saying ‘Shut up Tuba,
you’re a fucking pain’- uses infantile insult causally with murder- doesn’t even stop
walking to look- there is a complete psychopathic disconnect in Lil Ze’s character
- Coke= ‘nose candy’

1 hr 30- 1hr 40
- ‘A year later, no one remembered how it had all begun’ (the all out war between Ned/
Carrot and Lil Ze’s gangs)
- Death of small child holding gun- Ned blesses his body in a paternal way
- Ned is arrested and Ze is free- the megalomaniac is furious that Ned’s photo and
name is in the paper, not his
1 hr 40- 1 hr 50:
- one of Lil Ze’s gang members want to keep the rest of the newspaper to read, even the
adverts- tragic- desire to self-educate when on the margins of society, abandoned by the state
to spend childhood in the most violent of environments
- Rocket is called in by Thiago to take photos of Lil Ze and his gang brandishing their
guns, and is allowed to keep the camera by Lil Ze (as Bene had wished to give it to
him)
- When the photos are taken and published without Rocket’s consent, the true fragility
of his life is evident- at the whim of Lil Ze, he could be dead- yet, unhinged and
 deranged, Lil Ze is incredibly pleased with the photo on the front page, laughing with
Thiago and believing it to demonstrate who is ‘boss’
1hr 50- 2 hrs
- Clear police corruption- business dealings between ‘Uncle Sam’ supplier to Lil Ze
and police officer- Therefore, the police is ultimately supplying the very gangs it is
supposed to be eradicating with weapons
- Then policeman shoots Charlie without hesitation or warning to shut him up
- Lil Ze gives the Runts his guns, telling them to fight against Carrot for him. He tells
them not to do hold ups ‘in the ghetto’
- Most of them can’t even shoot a gun- Lil Ze asks another gang member to teach
‘these kids’
- A child that looks around 5 shouts ‘I know you do it like this’ and laughs as it shoots
the gun in the air
- ‘Beginning of the End’- back to title music and knife sharpening montage quick cuts
between shots with dancing etc.
- Police see the gang of Lil Ze and the Runts with guns and say ‘Let’s let them kill each
other’… ‘they can fuck themselves’
- Otto and Knockout Ned tragedy demonstrates the inability to trust even within the
gang
- When Ned stays to help Otto, Otto shoots him in the back as he walks away-
metaphorical? He said he wanted to get his father’s murderer in the flashback- who
was the policeman that Ned shot- in this story, even the apparent hero (Ned) is a
villain to some. War and violence glorifies no one, and City of God promotes and
important message about the true brutal reality of gang war and favela violence- no
one can be idolised, no one adopts a true binary, Hollywood-like role of hero and
villain- Lil Ze shows Rocket mercy and is pitiable at points and is somewhat victim of
the violence he grows up around and has strong loyalties and love/ brotherhood with
Bene, Ned tries to remain as pacifist and kind as possible, but his morality is not pure
and he kills an innocent man trying to do his job in front of his son’s eyes
- Ultimately, Carrot and Lil Ze both end up opposite each other in the trunk of a cop car
- Police officers extract Lil Ze, taking his money off him in exchange for releasing him-
caught on camera by Rocket
- Officer tells Carrot ‘not you, you’re a present for the media’- ironic- Rocket’s present
to the media of a single photograph can wreck their career
- Lil Ze is shot by the Runts hundreds of times in a similarly brutal way to the one in
which a young Lil Ze shot Goose and the people in the brothel- the cycle of brutality
in the favela starts again as they take over his ‘business’
- Last shot is of the Runts casually walking down the street shouting in a childish way
about who killed who and planning on a ‘black list’- ‘we’ll kill them all’, adding
names flippantly of people they know- it is like how children on a playground would
argue or bully on a whim and pettily, yet this time with the added peril of being armed
and instilled with a tolerance for the violent environment they are growing up in