Liam delivers his next review of DVDs available from Island Libraries – rental just 98p per night. Ed
In 2003 in London, a film called City of God was released by Brazillian director Fernando Meirelles that achieved both critical and commercial success and for an Independent foreign film that was subtitled, it became enough of a commercial success in Europe and America that Fernando Meirelles benefited massively.
Now six years later, Merielles has produced City of Men but the job of director has been passed to Paulo Morelli.
Although this is an attempt to set a story in Brazil once again, it concentrates on the area of Rio de Janiero.
Pauolo Morelli directs this film with assured confidence, using colour film that is saturated enough to show just how the heat of South America is affective to the eye and the mind.
For a Brazilian and Portugese language film the subtitles appear quickly and this adds to the pace of the story that is well thought out and quickly reveals over the course of the film, that, like City of God, characters are moving and affecting each others destiny without really understanding how.
City of Men is a courageous piece of work really, that is useful to both teenagers and parents. It manages to get across the reality of Rio de Janiero and the beauty of the people, as well as the difficult transition from adolescence into adulthood.
The acting is not particularly brilliant but it is affective to give the audience enough of an idea that for a film about friendship it could have all become too obvious.
City of Men will inevitably be compared to City of God and that really is the only problem. Yet, if anything this is a much more optimistic approach to a story that reveals that once teenagers get honesty from adults they can make hopeful choices.
