Opening

• The restless style announces itself from the start, not beginning with an establishing shot instead flashes that illuminate a series of pleonastic CU's (knife, hand, stone) intersplicing with a black encoding the fear and frantic nature of COG and its inhabitants.

  
  

  This distinctive editing of quick tempo is released into a MS of protagonist Rocket breaking the fourth wall snapping a picture as the camera pulls backwards into the title card, indicating his alienation in the favela
• 'If the character is going to be important later, then we freeze the face to commit it to memory. If both things happen at the same time then we split the screen, so as not to lose anything.' Editor = Daniel Rezende
• The samba music begins to fade in adding depth and introducing the Brazilian culture to the film.
• Whilst the cross-cutting slows down, the pleonastic knife sharpening CU repetition is reduced yet still shown every now and then: enforcing this sense of knife crime and violence existing in the favela

  
  

  This time it is montaged with flash shots of chicken slaughter, food preparation, and dancing.

  
  

  This frantic cross-cutting + Brazilian score creates vibrancy juxtaposing the imagery of danger and violence: the duality of Brazil (‘the double city’)
• Meirelles employs the Kuleshov effect (Lev Kuleshov) cross cutting between hand-held ground level reaction shots of the live chicken and its POV ECU of dead chickens.

  
  

  A prisoner appearance created by the hand held zoom into CU of the chicken’s foot tied up, relating to the inhabitants of the City of God who we learn are tied into the favela: unable to escape

  
  

  This fear is adopted by the audience with special temporal alignment in it's POVs'
• The chicken is a tool to portray the more important character like the gang to the audience. The use tracking shots when following the gang chasing the chicken help the audience decode the power dynamic in the favela.
• Cesar Charlone breaks into frantic handheld LS + MS chase (doc style) tracking the chicken around the favela, introduced to the favela that becomes a character in itself as it grows alongside the protagonist.
• Mis-en-scene / binary oppositions introduce the characters: the prominent prop for Lil Ze + gang are guns (they likely would've got from corrupt police) whilst Rockets is his camera.

  
  

  As well as this, the chaotic CU vs calming LS are binary oppositions. ECU on Lil Ze’s sinister smile establishes his villainous characterisation, being a common shot used in Disney fairytales to establish the villain.
• 'well, he's got too catch me first' introduces the 'showdown' between Lil Ze's gang, the chicken and Rocket, each characters we have followed around the favela.

  
  

  Lund employs a break in the action with Rocket, tracking LS removing the non-diegetic score is calming juxtaposing the chaos: introducing our alienated protagonist in the favela.

  
  

  The cross cutting meets up, in slow motion CU on Lil Ze and Rocket juxtaposing the protagonist and the villain.
• In the 360* spin, Rocket's intradiegetic narration of ‘a picture could change my life, but if you run away, they get you, and if you stay, they get you too’, depicts the central dilemma of the film, the inescapability of the favela.
• The 360* spin rewinds time into a nostalgic, warm, golden toned, portrayal of the past (the 60s.)

  This demonstrates a romanticism of the past, communicating the theme of longing for Brazil to return to a place of innocence before the radical urbanisation and corruption of the 70s.
• Revealed in a 360* pan CU, the chicken and Rocket are both in the middle of the street, with the police and gang on either side with guns drawn. This foreshadows how Rocked is in the middle of conflict throughout the fil, stuck between the police and the gangs: both corrupt and violent.

  
  

  This circling shots morphs Rocket into a young boy, and the favela into a warm - tone environment that is the 60s.
• The key aspects to the opening is the non-linear, in medias res flashforward, the editing, pleonastic sound and cinematography aligning the audience with the escapee chicken. 


  Filmed on 16mm cameras = rough footage

  Actors = authentic people from the favela - unprofessional

  Documentary genre style

  Rio 40 Graus film inspired visual aesthetic

  Cinema Novo movement