As a missionary in southern Brazil, I had a companion from Rio de Janeiro. People familiar with the greater Rio area would ask him what part of town he was from and he would tell them he was from Cidade de Deus. His response often drew a gasp, a double-take or a somber comment about the violence in the area. Cidade de Deus has a widespread reputation in Brazil for being one of the poorest, dirtiest, and most violent neighborhoods in the country.

He would often talk about what it was like growing up in City of God. He would tell me all about the sounds of gunshots, the corrupt police force, and massive drug trafficking. He explained that there actually wasn’t much crime in the slum because the drug lords ruled it all – and if someone in the slum had a TV stolen, they didn’t go to the police, they went to the drug lords and the problem was solved. The drug lords even watched out for the missionaries in the area.

I understood the world my companion explained to me to a degree – I myself had been mugged by gunpoint in a slum not long before. But in all my six months in the worst slum of my southern state, I never actually heard gunshots. I often wondered what it might be like in a place like City of God. Well, City of God gives us that chance.

Seen through the eyes of Buscapé (Alexandre Rodrigues), a young photographer in Cidade de Deus, City of God focuses primarily on the story of Zé Pequeno (Leandro Firmano), who kills all of the drug dealers in the neighborhood and takes over their business. Many other smaller stories of life in Cidade de Deus are told as well – and all with the style and grace of someone like Quentin Tarantino.

City of God is violent, but that’s its very point. The cycles of poverty and violence in the neighborhood are the primary issue being dealt with throughout the film. The cold, ruthless violence – especially when involving children – is difficult to watch at times but present genuinely sobering picture of life. This is a story that needs to be told.

The English subtitles were a generally accurate translation of what was being said – I’ve seen worse. The only problem is that even the best English translation would fail to transmit what these kids where saying. The English subtitles threw in a handful of English swear words to capture the coarseness of the language, but just reading the subtitles you would have no idea that these kids were spitting out a non-stop stream of slang. You could probably count the number of times standard Portuguese was spoken on one hand. I loved it. Maybe it’s just because I didn’t grow up with Portuguese, but where I often find American inner-city slang and Ebonics rather ugly, I find Brazilian slang creative and amusing. I quite enjoyed hearing all the words I haven’t heard since walking the streets of the slums.

Based on a true story in the late sixties and early seventies, City of God is an extreme case which probably doesn’t fully reflect everyday life in Cidade de Deus. There certainly aren’t massive gang wars everyday in the area, but the film is otherwise an entirely accurate representation of Brazilian slums. The shanties, and small soft brick houses, the starving dogs and difficulties of getting a good job are all purely represented. This is indeed life in the favela.

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