Cinema is an art in general to which many of us are addicted, its main feature is that perhaps like all art manages to transcend the language barrier and the simple fact of graphic representation allows that even without listening to a movie or even being on the set of recording we can feel identified and stunned with the message and the theme of it and that feeling that causes the film in us, is what I call the beauty of art.
I consider myself a fan of filmography in general and I have seen many films throughout my life but to be honest, foreign cinema is one of the facets that I have yet to explore. Not because of anything specific, I just never as such had the initiative to progressively watch films in another language and little by little get the hang of it.
When I talk about another language I mean any other than English or Spanish (the language I speak), however despite not having seen so many films does not mean that I never had the opportunity to see any, in fact, there is one in specific that when I saw it left me very shocked by the whole message and how they carried it out, and being honest managed to create in me many more emotions than they have been able to create any film belonging to Hollywood and with an exorbitant budget.
"Would you risk your life for a photo? A photo could have changed my life, but in the City of God if you run, you get caught. And if you don't run, you get caught".
The film I am talking about is Cidade de Deus (City of God in english), a Brazilian film that touches the raw and real life in some corners of the favelas of Brazil. As the main argument, the film develops the story through a little boy named Buscapé whose hobby is to be a photographer, and through this factor as simple and innocent as it is a child wanting to take pictures we are told the story lived in the favela of the City of God. A place where famine and evictions are factors that come to the fore and as in every favela there is a war between gangs to decide who will reign in the City of God.
Doesn't sound like a big deal, does it? The truth is that the plot at first seems somewhat simple but that is where it falls an important point of it and what seems to be the key factor that makes it a work of the cinema. How the film is told to the viewer is something that completely changes the focus, the plot can become interesting as the gangster life in favelas and the reality of them will always be a topic that the public will be interested in but it is something that in the long or short term, depending on the person who sees it will become boring. This is why the factor of how the film is told is the stellar point that makes it so good, all the points are through an outsider who is not fully involved in the matter and yet following his destiny observes with his camera everything that happens in the dreaded City of God.
At first, the language barrier was something that perhaps for me was not an impediment, actually Portuguese is quite similar to Spanish and therefore there may be some similarities in the words used. However not all words are similar and as we know in this language even an accent or a punctuation mark can completely change the meaning of the word, which is why I preferred to watch it with subtitles but keeping its original language. Something I always do since I believe that the original language is there for a reason and can lose the emphatic sense of what is said if it is changed, obviously respecting the dubbing in other languages that there are several that are a masterpiece as well.
If there is a word that can be paired with this film is "crudeness", it is already evident that life in the favelas is crude but this film shows many factors that can become shocking as are the corruption of all entities, poverty, abuse, the ruthlessness with which death can become normal and drug trafficking, this contrasts with the beauty of innocence and a feeling as pure as the love that is lived as a young person. So the film shows life in its pure state and how within evil there can be good and vice versa.
The main difference I could notice was in the dialogues and how the characters are manifested to the audience, unlike a Hollywood movie it poses more daily and deadly dialogues that are more focused on telling the essence of the character in question and their position concerning something. In addition to this, the rawness of the film as I mentioned is something that not even the highest-rated film on the big screen does, this because violence is not necessarily the sounds of slaughtering something and blood everywhere, violence is the cynicism with which you are told something and the cold way in which it is presented to you without even introducing you to that it is going to happen, this is something that makes a great way and one of the factors that I applaud the most.
I don't want to go back to recounting the film as I think it is something that deserves to be experienced live, enjoying each scene as it deserves, but without a doubt, the moment that made the most impact on me was when Zé Pequeño (head of the City of God at the time) hunts down a gang of vandal kids who are causing havoc by stealing in the favela and as the cause, he orders one of the kids to be killed, as crude as it sounds, by another kid. This was undoubtedly in those moments how you notice the cruelty and more importantly, how that instant when he pulls the trigger he goes from being an innocent kid to becoming the next favela thug. It is a path where there is no return and where the child that was known at that moment disappears completely, this is the best portrait of the film and with which I can identify it.
To be honest, one of the things for which it is said that cinema is art is thanks to the representation of the things that compose it, and I am a true believer that photography is perhaps one of the most important. Photography is one of the components of cinema that allow us to identify where the film is from, what the scene is about, and at what moment of the film we are in. Cidade de Deus has that characteristic touch of photography that allows us to associate it with that Caribbean touch of a country like Brazil and without getting into the schemes of other countries' films, it manages to give that unique touch with warm and unbalanced shots in colors that give it that characteristic of Brazilian cinema.
Honestly, for all that I mentioned, for me Cidade de Deus is one of the best films I have seen, not talking about foreign cinema, alternative cinema, nothing, it is simply one of the best works that I have seen and I firmly believe that it is at the level of quality of any Hollywood film with a tremendous budget. Beyond its message, its performances, its photography, its dialogues, beyond all of them, it is a film that I highly recommend and if you have not seen it yet, you should do it, it is a piece of art of cinema in general.
As I said, I am not a great connoisseur of foreign cinema but certainly, the great language barrier is something that will never stop us from knowing beautiful films and new experiences that allow us to enjoy this art. I like the theme of this contest because I think foreign cinema is quite underrated by many of us and we never realize the gems that exist outside of Hollywood. If you have read this far thank you very much and see you in the next one.
"The sun is for everyone, the beach is for those who deserve it".
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This is my entry for the "Foreign Cinema" contest held by the CineTV community, if you are interested in participating I leave you the link here.