Spring break. An empty campus. Me laying on my couch sifting through the movie collection in our apartment. Watching movies is always a good time filler. Not to say that watching movies is a bad thing, but for the most part, it got me through break.
We all have a story to tell. When we meet new people we talk to them and they tell us their story. Who they are. Where they have been. And how they got to now. Everything, leading up to the point when two people meet follows the path to an intersection. Everything after that intersection coincides. Not to say a parallel existence, because your paths may cross multiple times thereafter, but rather they co-exist together.
City of God
City of God follows the life and story of Rocket, a poor kid living in the City of God slum outside of Rio de Janeiro Brazil.
The film chronicles the life of Rocket. And more importantly the lives of the people that Rocket meets and has grown up with. Everyone Rocket knows has a story.
Writers struggle with this aspect of film-making because of the difficulty to write a believable back-story. Fact is, we want our audience to have a true grasp of who these characters are, what their motivations are and why they act they way they do. Accomplishing this successfully is even harder than it seems. Taking the time to introduce, tell and integrate characters is like ballroom dancing. If you take the wrong steps, it won’t take long for people to notice the lack in fluidity of your story.
The narrator is your guide. Be fore-warned. The narrator can also kill your story. We do not want to have our hand held through a journey into a place like the City of God. Rather, Rocket stands as the force that guides us and pushes us off the cliff and into the mix.
We experience the true raw reality of Rocket’s world, yet with each character who is introduced into the mix, we know who they are, their motivations and why they act in the way they act. Part of what adds to the reality of each introduction is the non-linear story telling that the film has. We are running through the present timeline of the film. Meet someone. Pause. Hear their story. Understand. Play. Integrate. Seamless.
Even better when it is all real.
If you have not already seen this film. Check it out. Seriously.
I loved this film. I saw it as a child and years later always remembered it as a beautiful film. I couldn’t get it out of my head and watched it again just months ago. Brilliant.
On second look, I’m mistaking City of God with City of Joy. Oops! I’m sure this movie is amazing, but City of Joy kicks ass!