‘City of God’ is based on true events yet not set in a documentary style, it has no interviews and all the people in it are actors. In my opinion it is a brilliant film. In education respect and even more so in entertainment. The film itself is evolved around the drug scandals and businesses in the city, and the devastating effects it can have upon people’s lives.
It is extremely entertaining in the way you never know what is going to happen next. It also has very good fluidity in the way one action briskly leads into another, it keeps the audience constantly on their toes and this is the key to the entertainment as it does not lose their interest.
The film also educates the audience in many ways. Firstly, the main way is how drugs and gun violence are a major issue there, and it is an everyday thing. The drugs issue is shown very well in a scene where Rocket goes to stay with the woman from the newspaper and she offers him a spliff. This shows the audience that it is a very common thing to do and more to the point nearly everyone in the ‘City of God’ does it, as the woman is probably quite ‘well off’ compared to most of the other people there due to her job.
There are also many scenes throughout the film with either drug references or drugs being taken and quite oftenly sold. I feel this is done to show the audience just how much the city is orientated. So in many ways this makes very good entertainment but at the same time you are shocked to learn about the extravagant ‘drug cultured’ city. This is also one of the most serious issues in the film and it has educated the audience in a very subtle way, though it has not been very sensitive on the matter. The film definitely comments on the drug issue by showing how the focal point of most of the city’s problem is drugs. It shows it is one of the few ways of making some money, therefore so many people get caught in the dealing game and often pay the price.
This takes me very nicely into my next point which is another serious issue tackled by the film to inform the audience about crime, injuries and fatality.
The amount of gun crime in this film is very high, again this could be a source of education about the city’s violence without using interviews and actual footage from the city. This also provides a great source of entertainment due to the way its put together in an action film style. Also lots of people like a bit of gore in a film.
There are a few excellent gun and murder scenes in the film, but some of the most powerful and educating are when lil zee hands out the guns to the kids who are barely 10 years old, also when someone makes someone else shoot the little children. This shows just how much young children get caught up in, injured or even killed. This informs the audience on how evil the city is.
To sum up, the last piece of educational status in the film is a major one yet not so obvious. It is the fact that there are only two ways to get a decent life and some money in the city. Either get a real job for example do what Rocket did, became a photographer or become involved in drugs which is fairly ironic getting a good life by becoming involved in a bad thing which unfortunately most people do and end up being killed or losing someone close to them.
Out of the original characters nearly all were killed and only one ended up with a decent and stable life. This makes you think, out of the children we saw at the end of the film which of them will even make it to their 20th birthday and who if any will be sensible and get a good job.
It just goes to show that the education in the film is strong, a documentary is not needed, the film is more effective as well as being entertaining. The audience were educated but may not have even realized it.
