Turkey and Brazil are not always the first two countries you think of when you are choosing a movie, however, I chose these two countries to watch films about due to the abundance of Turkish students in my Fall 1 ELI experience and Brazil was chosen for the rich culture. Within the last two weeks of my second ELI experience, Caroleina has taught me a great deal about Brazil so I wanted to enhance my knowledge and identify how Brazilians represent their culture through their films. In order to find the perfect film to watch, I did some research in order to find the film the City of God directed by Fernando Meirelles. When I chose this film it was due to the good reviews and it was easily accessible on Netflix. In the film reviews, I noticed …show more content…
The Time period of the film is through the1960s and the 1980s, it starts off with the main character, Rocket, playing soccer with the other kids in the neighborhood. When Rocket begins to tell the story of his brother entering organized crime, he also explains how it gets passed off to the other children in the town. Sadly, each story ends with another member's death, even the positive characters that have a stronger morality. The first gang is the Trio and they rob but never kill anyone, however, at one heist due to the lookout getting ambitious, the Trio leaves and the lookout, Zé, kills everyone at the motel causing the members of the Trio to get arrested or killed by the police. The second gang leader is Zé and he goes on to control almost all of the drug distribution in the City of God. The third gang leader is Carrot and he controls the other half of the City of God. While Zé cleans up the streets and prevents crime from occurring in his half of the city, Carrot does not care what happens in his. These two leaders lead to war with each other, which causes complete destruction of the city and countless die due to this war. Since Rocket documents all of this and witnesses the final battle, it documents the corruption of the police and organized crime during this time in Brazil. This film displays the class struggle and the corruption within Brazil during this time