Excessive violence in movies is a fascinating subject. The average American moviegoer is not exposed to the amount and intensity of violence found in most Hollywood fare.
So how do they process what they’re seeing onscreen? Often by convincing themselves what they’re seeing is only entertainment and not real.
Brazil’s magnificent, visually stunning “Cidade de Deus” (“City of God”) is excessively violent. One can probably count on two hands the number of scenes in which someone isn’t shot.
The film ignites an interesting debate: its critics will say the filmmakers exceeded the acceptable level of violence about halfway through, arguing 500 people shot tells the story just as well as 1,000 people shot. In most other movies, they’d be right. But in “Deus,” the very story, the very theme is — excessive violence.
The movie tells the tale of three decades in a Rio de Janeiro ghetto. In this neighborhood, men make their living selling drugs and robbing hotels, and women spend their lives searching for that one man who can help them escape. There are no laws or police willing to enforce them.
Out of the anarchy, a hierarchy of power arises, and little boys quickly learn whoever has the most money has the most power, whoever has the most drugs has the most money, and whoever kills the most people gets the most drugs.
The film’s hero is Rocket, an earnest, straight-arrow boy with a fondness for smoking pot who has two objectives — get laid and get out of Rio de Janeiro.
The film depicts his ’60s childhood in bright, warm colors. The main cast of characters is introduced through a hotel robbery. The leaders of the group of young troublemakers swear there’ll be no bloodshed, but the cocky new boy, Lil’ Dice, gets bored and takes things into his own hands.
A shocking flashback shows this eight-year-old boy brandishing a shotgun, grinning gleefully as he executes every last person in the hotel. Lil’ Dice will grow up to become Lil’ Ze, one of the neighborhood’s most powerful gang leaders.
“Deus” is based on a written account of the slums of Rio de Janeiro by a man who grew up in that area and spent 20 years researching his book. The filmmakers took to the streets of Brazil to gather their amazing cast of mostly first-time actors. This dose of reality is what elevates the film above being exploitative and numbing.
This isn’t a fictionalized account a of bitter Vietnam vet returning to kill as many people as he could. This is the real-life story of thousands of people, ignored by the media and pushed aside by the government, who are left no other option but follow the only path they see — crime.
In gang life, there are always two sides, the gang in control and the gang who wants to be in control. This dynamic sets up the film’s most harrowing situations, as each young boy is forced to take sides.
The movie’s most memorable moment is also the one that shows why the violence wasn’t over the top. Lil’ Ze decides to teach a young groups of kids a lesson. He plucks two adorable six-year-olds out of the crowd and forces them to choose whether to be shot in the foot or the hand.
Then he offers one of their buddies a deal — the boy can join his gang if he shoots one of his friends. It’s the most difficult scene to watch since the ear scene in “Reservoir Dogs,” and it’s infinitely more poignant. Even after watching hundreds of familiar and nameless characters get shot, this moment crushes your insides.
In the traditional gore-fest movie, it’s easy to know who to blame and it’s easy to hate the villain. But in “Deus,” even Lil’ Ze, a ruthless killing machine, is a complex character. It’s hard not to feel sorry for him as woman after woman shoots him down when he asks them to dance — he’s too ugly.
The film has earned comparisons to Scorsese’s early work, which are certainly warranted. The cinematography is fresh and brilliant, evident in the opening scene of a chicken frantic to escape its impending slaughter and the shooting of a beloved character set to strobe lights and “Kung Fu Fighting.”
The story starts out with a tense encounter between Rocket and Lil’ Ze’s gang, then freezes and rewinds back to the ’60s to bring the audience into proper perspective of the gravity of this run-in.
The elliptical story is the perfect complement to the film’s closing shot — a new group of young gunslingers walk down an alley, gaily plotting out a list of who they’ll kill next. The cycle continues.
