city of god - notes from an interview

It was very shocking for us. Nobody knew exactly what happened inside the favelas and this was a book that was telling the story from the inside. When Fernando Meirelles is asked about Paulo Lins’s novel that took him eight years to complete and the influence it had over the city of god. It is shown throughout the interview that there where many books and films that inspired Meirelles when shooting City of God.

An example of an inspiration towards the director is in pulp fiction, where the non-linear story line is used to give deeper meaning to each character, and that every event has a domino effect impacting I wide range of characters in every scene. Pulp fiction also starts in a similar fashion to City of God, this is shown in COG in the ‘flying chicken’ scene where we aren’t given any context  to what is happening and seems like a scene that is used to show the culture of Rio de Jinero whilst the opening credits appear on screen, however later on in the movie we are shown that this scene is a big turning point in the story’s plot. Pulp fiction does this in the ‘restaruant’ scene where the same thing happens. On the other hand Fernando says” Pulp Fiction is quite different from City of God because Tarantino uses violence as an amusement, something funny and spectacular. City of God does the opposite. When you watch my film, you don’t want to be part of these gangs.” This shows that he doesn’t want to “glamorize” death in the film as his main focus is to show the truth of the Favelas and not to make a comedic film. In addition, this belief of the director is further presented when he said “I wanted to put the camera on the other side and tell it through Paulo Lins’s point of view and not a middle-class one.” Fernando Meirelles does this because again he doesn’t want to make this film to get money but to educate people on the dire situation Brazils slums face.

When asked about the current situation with the favelas Fernando replied “now it’s worse than it was in the 80s, when the film ends. The drug dealers control all the favelas, especially in Rio.” The current state of Brazil shows that even though the film was able to educate others into understanding the situation, it wasn’t able to fix the problem and know even “ex-policemen” are running factions in the corrupt city un-helped by the government.

Finally, when the director was asked about the use of sound in the film he said that “Brazil is a very musical country and music is part of our lives. When you go to a favela, it’s a very fun place to be. The film tries to capture that same feeling.”  This helps viewers understand why there is happy music in such a grim film filled with no comedy and little happiness. It also shows hoe dedicated Fernando was when making the film showing how he really wanted to understand life in the Favelas.