Film Studies

City of God is a Brazilian film, written by Bráulio Mantovani and directed by Fernando Meirelles. The film is set in the slums of Rio De Janeiro and looks at the life of young boys in gangs.

City of God follows the story of Rocket, a young boy who is surrounded by violence and murder from a young age. The story looks at boys who have tried to get out of the slums but can never escape. His story features Lil Ze, one of the cities biggest drug dealers, and shows the rise and fall of his empire. The film shows the war in the slums between the two gangs seeing the effect on the generations younger than them.

I feel the film shows the slums in good perspective, giving the world a look in to young peoples involvment in drugs and violence. It shows how they have no way out, they don’t have a choice in what they do in life. The cast give us the passion and true feeling from the slums and give us a realistic look in to their lives.

The focus of my small scale research project will be the versatility of John Travolta. The three films I will be focusing on are Grease, Pulp Fiction and Hairspray.

Once Were Warriors is a New Zealand film directed by Lee Tamahori. The film shows us their way of life and is brutally honest about urban societies. The film looks at poverty, alcohol, violence and suicide.

The film is focused around Jake, Beth and their children. Jake and Beth’s marriage is on its last legs and after Jake beats Beth, events start to spin out of control. The couple’s eldest daughter kills herself after being raped by one of Jake’s closest friends and one of their sons is taken to a boy’s institute.

The film is dank and follows the life of each of the main characters closely. It is not a film for the faint-hearted as it is punchy and honest. The cast portray the characters with a deep, honest performance and bring us the harsh reality of life.

Written and directed by Mathieu Kassovitz, the French urban film, La Haine, gives us an insight into the life of young adults against the police in suburban Paris. The film looks into generational, racial and class divides in France in a pessimistic view.
The film counts down the 24 hours after a suburban riot when an Arab teenager, Abdel, is beaten by the police and goes into a coma. The film follows three teenagers, Vinz, Saïd and Hubert after Vinz swears to “whack” a cop if Abdel dies. During the day and night they think about their friend and stumble across a cop’s lost gun.
The film is shot in black and white, which gives a great atmosphere and has a great style of hip-hop, which is played in the background through a lot of the film. This quote that Hubert recites at the start and end of the film, shows the defeatist attitude of the three boys, “Heard about the guy who fell off a skyscraper? On his way down past each floor, he kept saying, to reassure himself, ‘so far so good… so far so good… so far so good.’ How you fall doesn’t matter. It’s how you land.”