City of God in Several Voices: Brazilian Social Cinema as Action
Edited by Else R. P. Viera

Year of Publication: 2005

Since it premièred in 2002, the national and international box-office hit City of God, directed by Fernando Meirelles, has pushed the frontiers of the world's and of Brazilian film-making and has triggered a debate on the achievement of the commercial film in advancing a social cause. This volume on the film poses many questions. How does the film foreground the social agenda of growing poverty intersecting with race in favelas (slums) rendered increasingly vulnerable to the power of narcotics traffic? What was the effect of the mobilisation the film created in Brazil? How successful has the film been in partially using a universally recognisable film language to take this national reality across frontiers? Does the use of some of the conventions of an international film language clash with the demands of the audio-visual within Brazil? What are the implications of the internationalisation of Brazilian film for the professionalisation of the director and his teamwork strategy? Individual chapters follow the malandro (the Brazilian trickster) across national frontiers, and interrogate British critics for framing the film within the gangster genre and leaving out its strong social dimension.