{"id":1607,"date":"2019-11-05T15:00:50","date_gmt":"2019-11-05T22:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/?p=1607"},"modified":"2023-10-25T19:43:36","modified_gmt":"2023-10-26T01:43:36","slug":"movie-city-of-god-2002","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/2019\/11\/05\/movie-city-of-god-2002\/","title":{"rendered":"MOVIE: City of God (2002)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><u><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/en\/thumb\/1\/10\/CidadedeDeus.jpg\/220px-CidadedeDeus.jpg\" alt=\"City of God\" width=\"220\" height=\"324\">City of God<\/u><\/strong><br \/>\nYear: 2002<br \/>\nRating: R<br \/>\nLength: 130 minutes \/ 2.17 hours<\/p>\n<p>About a decade ago, I saw a clip from&nbsp;<em>City of God<\/em>&nbsp;(2002) in my Film Studies course at college. One of my classmates brought it to show everyone how realistic the acting appeared during a scene where young children were initiated into a gang. I had to admit that the acting seemed authentic. However, I didn\u2019t consider it as part of the whole movie until recently, when I had a chance to sit down and watch the entire thing. While I\u2019ll agree that this short clip was a good example of what the film had to offer, I was more in awe of plenty of other aspects it brought to the table.<\/p>\n<p>First off, the beginning of this movie wowed me with its cinematography. The whole \u201cchicken chase\u201d sequence is perhaps one of the best I\u2019ve ever seen.&nbsp;<em>City of God<\/em>&nbsp;still manages to maintain some exquisite subtlety in showing the audience what it wants to throughout the rest of the film. That being said, this setup from the start sets the tone for the observant viewer to appreciate. Aside from the camera work, the little \u201cact title\u201d bits were also done in a way that helped to drive the plot forward with plenty of foreshadowing.<\/p>\n<p>Overall, I found the story to be engaging, but the main character\/narrator\u2019s arc was a little undeveloped (har har). There\u2019s this framing that focuses on his photography, but the audience only ever sees it come to play in the plot close to the very end of the film. I\u2019m sure this was to hold closer to the \u201ctrue story\u201d it was based on (which is another aspect I found fascinating). And yet, it also felt like a missed opportunity along the way. In the end, the actors\u2019 performances did feel very authentic in a way that it almost seemed like I was watching a documentary. The only reason I knew I wasn&#8217;t was for the fact that the camera kept moving in creative and artistic ways.<\/p>\n<p>Spectacular cinematography for a gritty \u201ctrue story,\u201d I give&nbsp;<em>City of God<\/em> 4.5 stars out of 5.<\/p>\n<h2><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\">&nbsp;<strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\">&nbsp;<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\">&nbsp;<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\">&nbsp;1\/2<\/strong><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>City of God Year: 2002 Rating: R Length: 130 minutes \/ 2.17 hours About a decade ago, I saw a clip from&nbsp;City of God&nbsp;(2002) in my Film Studies course at college. One of my classmates brought it to show everyone how realistic the acting appeared during a scene where young children were initiated into a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,4,382,2],"tags":[1746,671,1928,1672,1926,13,8,1927],"class_list":["post-1607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-21","category-4-5-stars","category-foreign","category-movie","tag-1746","tag-brazil","tag-cidade-de-deus","tag-cinematography","tag-city-of-god","tag-movie","tag-review","tag-true-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1607"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1607\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1611,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1607\/revisions\/1611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}