City of Men DVD Review
Directed by: Paulo Morelli
Written by: Elena Soarez and Paulo Morelli
Starring: Douglas Silva, Darlan Cunha, Camila Monteiro

Back in 2002, Fernando Meirelles directed a movie called City of God about the life of two boys growing up in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. The movie made many “best of” lists that year, and was even nominated for 4 Oscars including Best Director and Best Cinematography. Not only was it a great movie, but it was an eye-opening experience for many who did not realize the extent of the crime and gang warfare taking place in Brazil.

Since then, there has been an explosion of interest in the culture and stories from the ghettos of Brazil. City of God was successful enough to spawn a TV series called City of Men, which was a spin-off focusing on a different set of characters. After the fourth season, they decided to do a feature film to wrap up some of the storylines and follow the main characters into adulthood. As such, the movie City of Men is not a direct sequel to City of God, but it deals with similar themes and is almost as good in my opinion. Fernando Meirelles is on board as a producer, while Paulo Morelli (who previously directed episodes of the TV show) takes over the reins behind the camera.

City of Men starts off seemingly more innocent than City of God as we meet two best friends, Ace and Wallace, who have grown up through some tough times together. Ace has a baby boy with his teenage wife, Cris, but has trouble accepting responsibility. Wallace is about to turn 18, and having grown up without a father, decides that now is the time to seek him out his identity. Both have ties to a gang, but have avoided direct involvement for the most part. Near the beginning of the film we see them hanging out at the beach with one of the gangs, but the only real threat of violence is seen in the guards that they post to watch over the beach with machine guns.

At first things seem to be treated very non-chalantly and almost harmless, but eventually the story build to a massive gang war for control of Dead End Hill. Ace and Wallace are caught in the middle of it, and forced from their homes. The back alleys and shacks of their neighbourhood erupts in gunfire in the middle of the night as a major showdown takes place.

There’s no question that City of Men is a little softer than City of God, and not as powerful. The gang war is kind of in the background of the main story and downplayed a bit, shown as just another part of every day life in the favelas (which I suppose, is even more disturbing in a way). It’s still a very compelling watch and beautifully shot, however; I feel like I could watch an endless number of stories told from these ghettos, just for the gorgeous scenery juxtaposed with danger around every corner. (I suppose that’s why they made a TV show in the first place.)

Even if you haven’t seen the TV series, the movie definitely works as a standalone story. They mix in some actual clips from the TV series as flashbacks, which is kind of cool because how often can you do flashbacks with the same actors looking 5 years younger? These help to fill in a few gaps in the story and adds to the sense of history between Ace and Wallace.

Ultimately, City of Men has some measure of hope at its core, which is kind of a nice change of pace from the depressing hard knock tales we usually see. I would still hold it in league with many of the classic American movies about life on the streets, and now that it’s out on DVD you should definitely check it out (after you’ve see City of God that is).

The DVD also includes a 15 minute “making of” featurette, and the movie is presented in Portuguese with English subtitles. — Sean

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