Fernando Mereilles

Fernando Meirelles' visceral Brazilian crime epic, City of God

by Ryan Mottesheard | Published January 24, 2003

Rodrigues with Alice Braga in Fernando Mereilles’ City of God.

Every once in a while a foreign film comes along that breaks out of the art houses and works its way into the mainstream. The film begins its life elsewhere, a film festival, usually. Critics gush over it in their festival columns and Hollywood execs clamor for meetings with the director.

In the '60s, these films came courtesy of Bergman, Fellini and Godard. But these days, as the new Brazilian film City of God attests, more than ever these films are coming from Latin America.

Fernando Meirelles' sprawling, violent, tender, visceral crime epic does for Brazilian cinema what Amores Perros and Y Tu Mamá También did for Mexican cinema. While many of their European counterparts are busy trying to beat Hollywood at its own game, these Latino auteurs are revitalizing their own national cinemas, not only with their technical virtuosity, but with frank, warts-and-all honesty.

City of God tells the story of two decades of life (the '60s and '70s) in the Brazilian favela, Ciudad de Deus (City of God). Favelas began as government-organized communities for low-income families outside of Rio de Janeiro. But as the idealistic '60s gave way to the rough and tumble '70s, the government began to lose control of these projects. The drug trade flourished, as did the rampant violence that accompanied it and the favelas fell under the control of drug lords. But a favela drug lord was only king until someone more determined and ruthless came along. When they did, they brought gangs of impoverished boys who would kill—and be killed for them—at the drop of a hat. In City of God, a young man who lived to the age of 20 was considered fortunate.

In his first interview with MM, Fernando Meirelles talks about the improvisational nature of his film, the current international popularity of Latin American cinema and why it baffles him that critics would call his new film "stylistic."

Ryan Mottesheard (MM): Miramax picked up City of God just before it premiered at Cannes. At what point did you know you had something special on your hands?

Fernando Meirelles (FM): I didn't. Miramax was supposed to get involved in the project before shooting, because this film was attached to a Walter Salles project starring Benicio del Toro. But when Benicio broke his finger and couldn't do the film, Miramax said, "Well, our deal was for Redemption,
not City of God."

When this happened, I was already rehearsing, the crew was ready, we were two or three weeks away from shooting—so we decided to finance it ourselves. We couldn't stop. We were so involved—so excited to do it—that I said, 'I have to see this through to the end, no matter what happens.' At the time, I thought it was the stupidest decision I'd made in my entire life. I was spending all of my money on a project with non-professional actors, shooting in a favela and making a violent movie. It was a very stupid decision. But when I finished editing the film, we showed it to Miramax and they picked up the North American rights.

MM: Has it opened in Brazil yet?

FM: Yes, [in late August]. It was very good; much better than we expected. The critics are split into two parts: many journalists and the President saw the film and really liked it and thought it was really faithful to reality. However, there is another group of critics who think the film is senseless, that it's like a music video, a pop thing, very shallow. They simply destroyed the movie. There's no middle opinion with the film.

MM: You co-directed two films prior to City of God, a movie called Domesticas and a children's film, correct? What were these two films like?

FM: The children's film wasn't my film. A friend of mine called me a few weeks before shooting to ask me to help her. But I did this other film called Domesticas (Maids) about maids in Brazil. It was very small, independently done. I made it with a friend of mine, Nando Olival, and I did it to learn how to make a feature. Before that I'd worked in television and commercials, but I had no experience in making a feature.

MM: What did you take from Maids that you were able to bring to City of God? They're not very similar.

FM: While visually the film is very different from City of God, in terms of performance I think they are similar. In Maids, I used professional but unknown actors and there's this way of acting that's quite similar to City of God. People watch Maids and think it's almost a documentary; they don't see them as actors playing maids. We didn't workshop it as extensively as City of God, but we worked on it a lot. They would create and recreate their own dialogues.

MM: I know you devised an intense actors' workshop in Rio for City of God with the help of Katia Lund. [Meirelles and Lund saw some 3,000 prospective actors, culling them down to a final 100 from which the final roles were cast.]

FM: I worked on the script in Sao Paolo, my home, and when it was ready I moved to Rio to create this school so these amateur actors could bring the roles of City of God to life. Katia Lund had been an assistant director on Central Station and other Brazilian films, so I called her to help me form this acting school. She made this incredible documentary about drug dealers in Brazil called News From a Particular War, where she spent two years interviewing drug dealers, police and people in the community. She was very familiar with the subject matter, which is why I called her. She came aboard only to help with the actors, but she had excellent ideas with the script and helped me out a lot. So she got a co-directing credit. But after we finished shooting, she was out of the process.

Alexandre Rodrigues in City of God. Left:

MM: The workshopping process sounds like Mike Leigh's work.

FM: I love Mike Leigh. He's my first reference for acting. We do the same thing he does—we don't give the script to the actors. We allow them to create their characters and we rehearse a lot. And during this rehearsal, the characters rewrite their dialogue. Sometimes we make suggestions here and there, but mostly they create their own lines.

MM: City of God is very stylish, but it also has a looseness to it. I assume your work with the actors also informed this visual style.

FM: Certainly. The film is very different from the beginning to the end. We shot it in three different ways: the first part of the film is more classical—we were using a 40mm lens, tripods, dollies. I'd give the actors some marks. But by the end of the film, it was like losing control of the production. In the last part, we never told the actors where to go, even in subsequent takes of a scene. In each take they would be in different positions and they might say different lines. It was really a free experience for them—and the camera.

The last part of the film was just trying to catch everything that was happening. The story is about the state losing control of this neighborhood. In the beginning, everything's controlled, the Ciudad de Deus housing project, even the landscape. But by the end, it was like the crew was losing control of the film. But this is a film about losing control, so it fit.

Also, everyone is saying the film is "stylized," but I don't think so. I don't see why. We shot almost the entire film handheld. We only used natural light. Even the interiors, we only put lamps on the wall—you can see the lamps in some of the shots—and that was it. There was no "lighting," no electrical crew. It was so natural.

MM: I think it must be from the editing.

FM: Sure, but when I see a Kurosawa movie, that's stylization. So I guess, what isn't stylization? Every time you create a frame, you're deciding on visual options. Even if it's a boring frame, it's an option. I don't get why people think City of God is so stylized.

MM: Latin American films are beginning to reach a wider audience, from Amores Perros and Y Tu Mamá También to a wave of Argentine films. And now there's City of God following on the heels of Walter Salles' work.
Do you have any thoughts on this current synergy?

FM: One thing that I see in all these films is the stories are being told in an original way. In Latin America, we're not trying to copy the American way of shooting. I know that me or Alejandro González Iñárritu or Pablo Tropero from Argentina, we're telling these stories in a way I think makes it fresh. And I think we have very urgent stories to tell. MM

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