Viewing notes

• Opening sequence...
• XCU of knife being sharpened intercut with black shots

  Introduces theme of violence from outset, subverts traditional Hollywood est. shot which unsettles viewer –active audience 
• Begins in medias res 


  Active audience, demonstrates cause + effect story structure that allows the world to feel moving/changing and authentic 
• Washed out colour grade


  Sets up poor, urban world neglected by Rio de Janiro’s city centre
• Syncopated non-diegetic traditional samba score alongside pleonastic diegetic knife sharpening


  Juxtaposes party/positive side of Brazilian culture (sense of place) and danger of favelas – what youth should be doing vs the reality of life surrounded by crime, creates fast-paced chaotic beat 
• Charlone’s camerawork of POV shots from chicken + shaky handheld camera

  Spatial temporal alignment with the prey, est. Lil Ze as hunter/antagonist, allegory for living in favelas – excitement and fear, sets up key theme ‘if you leave, they get you, if you stay, they get you’, documentary-like feel creating authenticity 
• Parallel editing used


  Introduces the films protagonist at the time the chase is occurring, contrasting the normality of his world to the chaotic and edgy one of the gang
• Kuleshov effect 


  Chicken appears shocked, sense of relatability with the chicken due to the combined chaotic film form and it is representing life in the favelas - constantly running with no escape
• Low angles insert shots of guns

  Indicating their central theme - they become a motif of the violence in the story.
• Ariel establishing shot of the City of God


  The favela that is central to the violence and trouble of the narrative - the standing point for the gangs, the drug dealing and the 60s partying. Documentary style shooting that replaces need for establishing shots Hollywood aesthetic and introduces the favela.
• Slo-mo CU canted angle of Lil ‘Ze

  Significance of character, unnerving angle puts audience on edge 
• Slo-mo 360 pan as two groups (police + gang) meet with Rocket in between

  Shows main conflict of gang vs police with us positioned as R in between – feel both insider and outsider (as Lins wanted to translate how he felt living there and escaping)  
• Circular 360 pan of Rocket match cut to 60s, colour palette shifts from dark/cool to gold/warm

  (temporal narrative time marker of text on bottom of screen), nostalgia for old, less violent times, shows decay of favela and in turn its’ people as crime spiralled out of control.
• Non-diegetic omniscient narrator introduced

  Personal aspect of the story, places the audience directly into the story, juxtaposes the camerawork that places us within the action
• The opening begins the story in haste and detail - can be credited to the quick cutting and mobile handheld camerawork 
• Looking into the depth of the film forms results in the deepening and expanding of the narrative 
• The tender trio...
• L/A of football in air + freeze frame of gunshot through it

  Stylistic of comic reflecting Rocket’s reportage style juxtaposing documentary feel, emphasises light-hearted/casual violence in favelas + loss of innocence – kids supposed to play with football, but play is corrupted with violence
• Theme of police corruption as crimes go unpunished – TT kids can easily outsmart law system  
• Shaky handheld camera tracking shots of TT escaping police --> authenticity, places viewer in action 
• Montage of life in favelas LS (location shooting in Cicade Alta)

  Emphasise barren land –lack of opportunity and infrastructure from working class being shunned and abandoned by government/lack of funding, also romanticises simplicity and beauty –children playing, scenery as opposed to 70s-80s period
• VO of R ‘There was no electricity, paved streets or transportation. But for the powerful, our problems didn’t matter. We were too far removed.’ 

  Demonstrates above point, subverts naturalistic cinematography –removing audience enough to understand message
• Romantic air to this era with warm imagery, pastel colours, orange glow

  Represents a time when violence wasn’t for the sake of violence, violence served a purpose and that was survival (giving to community) – the mantra ‘kill or be killed.’
• The story of the apartment...
• Freeze frame deep focus wide angle LS/crowd shot/wide shot

  Exaggerated perspective to room so audience can see whole space and ‘fly on the wall’ perspective so viewers are voyeurs, allows contrast to be made between present day and flashbacks, contrasts the highly mobilised style of rest of film
• Heterodiegetic narration of Rocket throughout

  Allows movement through narrative, insight to all time periods and characters
• Fades + dissolves

  Shows time passing, circularity of crime/drugs of favela as cycle repeats and can’t be broken after decades
• Depth of field altering between shallow and deep focus

  Shallow focus keeps attention in the foreground, deep focus allows audience to pick out several changes occurring across the apartment. 
• Dona Zela sells drugs to support daughters – warm colour palette, soft furnishing and cooking equipment

  Nostalgic, domestic, difference in motives of drug selling to 80s 
• Dissolving, overlapping shot to Big Boy overthrowing DZ – weed + beer in foreground, furnishings removed, paint peeling

  Crime growing out of hand, loss of domesticity, neglect, represents drug trade overtaking favelas 
• Carrot becomes manager – Marchette stabbed into table, more drugs, torn pornographic photos, muted/cooler colour palette (aesthetics impact film)

  Corrupt police, complete loss of violence for a cause, deteriation of time