Guns and cameras in City of God

The film City of God portrays a slum of Rio de Janeiro where gangs rule by force of arms. Through the decades spanned in the film, Fernando Meirelles displays a cycle of violence, where guns are passed from brother to brother, until the gang members get younger and younger, and all hope of leaving for a better life is lost. The film’s main character, Rocket, escapes this cycle by arming himself not with a gun, but a camera. Though the implicit meaning of the camera is clear, Meirelles draws parallels throughout the film between cameras and guns, emphasizing how close Rocket is at all times to falling into the same cycle of violence as his friends.

Cameras are introduced into Rocket’s life in the scene documenting the City of God’s 1960s era, a bloodbath that climaxes in a photographer taking shots of a corpse. Introducing cameras in this way gives Rocket’s camera use in the rest of the film a sense of morbidity. Rocket’s first camera-as-gun experience happens immediately after the introduction of his first camera, “the world’s cheapest model.” While on the beach, Rocket takes photos of his crush, Angelica. When Tiago, Angelica’s boyfriend, comes in for a group photo, Rocket tells him to move back, casting his face in shadow and essentially removing him from the photo. Though it seems like an innocent bit of teenage jealousy, Rocket’s act takes on a sinister air when similar acts are perpetrated later in the film with guns instead of cameras. Removing people simply because they are annoying seems to be a near-constant theme: at one point, the town’s principal drug lord, Li’l Ze, shoots his loudmouth friend just to get him to “shut up.”

The link between guns and cameras is solidified in the scene where Benny, Li’l Ze’s longtime friend and partner, throws a party before he plans to leave the city. During the party, Benny receives a camera in exchange for a bag of cocaine, and gives it to Rocket. However, Li’l Ze, who is furious at Benny for planning to leave, wrestles the camera from Rocket. While Benny and Li’l Ze are fighting over the camera, a bullet meant for Li’l Ze hits and kills Benny, preventing him from leaving the City of God. Firstly, and most obviously, the camera quite literally has as much to do with Benny’s death as the gun does. It keeps him in close proximity to Li’l Ze, thrashing around so Li’l Ze’s would-be assassin cannot get a clear shot. Also, the camera was traded for cocaine. Since even the gangsters in the City of God are not rich, they buy their guns in the same way; not with money, but with drugs. Finally, the tie between the gun and the camera in this scene is solidified stylistically as well. When the fight between Benny and Li’l Ze heats up moments before Benny is shot, the dance begins to be lit entirely by a strobe light. This has the effect of making the action seem like individual photos being taken one after another.

More interesting parallels are drawn between guns and cameras late in the film, when Li’l Ze and Rocket are both “armed” by respective professionals. While Li’l Ze hosts an arms dealer in his apartment, Rocket is given a job as a photojournalist and is equipped with various pieces of camera machinery. The similarity of these two scenes is striking. Both professionals (the gun salesman and the newspaper photographer) are shown surrounded by their wares, picking up various bits of machinery and explaining them in technical lingo at fast speeds. Both recipients know little about the equipment they’re receiving; Li’l Ze rejects a gun with the “same caliber, but lighter” than the one he wants, while Rocket has to be asked “will you be up close or far away?” so he can be taught what lenses to use. Finally, being up close or far away factors in another way. Rocket definitively states “far away” as far as the question is asked, and for good reason: he does not want to get hit. Li’l Ze has the same request: he specifically asks for a long-range gun with an “infrared sight.”

The final comparison between cameras and guns in City of God comes at the concluding scene of the film. Due to circumstances revolving around a runaway chicken, Rocket finds himself face to face with Li’l Ze’s gang, all brandishing a plethora of guns. On his other side are cops, also ready to fire. In response, Rocket holds up his camera to the gang. In a shot that serves to prove Rocket is completely surrounded, the (movie) camera circles around Rocket’s camera, placing it in comparison to the gun-toting groups throughout the shot: he is wildly outgunned. Then, at the exact moment Rocket takes a photo of the gang, a member of the rival gang appears and shoots one of Li’l Ze’s men. In this instant, the sound of the gun firing and of the camera shutter clicking are as one, further solidifying the link between the two pieces of machinery. Soon afterwards, Rocket jumps and ducks behind a wall in a shot so reminiscent of any war movie. The only difference is instead of a gun, Rocket brandishes a camera from behind his wall, firing off photo after photo of the gang war. Ultimately, Rocket photographs the dead body of the gun-downed Li’l Ze. Before he is killed, Li’l Ze tells his gang members, “we’ll have to do a few hold-ups to get my business going again.” His mind follows a fairly simple track: hold-ups equal money. As Rocket surveys his photos, he has a similar thought: “This picture of the hood will guarantee my salary.”

City of God is primarily a film about a young man who escapes the cycle of violence in his home town by taking up a creative endeavor instead of spiraling into drug abuse and gang membership. Certainly, the film promotes practice. However, as with most good filmmakers, Fernando Meirelles introduces shades of grey where others would leave the issues black and white. Specifically, Meirelles shows a link between guns, which perpetrate the cycle of violence, and cameras, which Rocket uses to break free, though the camera frequently shows Rocket a world as tempting and immoral as that of his friends. In this way, Meirelles illustrates just how close Rocket is at any moment to falling into the same dark life as the rest of his home town.