Nothing But Blue Skies... | The tropical sky provides an ironic backdrop for the gritty action of City of Men.
CITY OF MEN
Directed by Paulo Morelli. Starring Douglas Silva, Darlan Cunha, Jonathan Haagensen, Rodrigo dos Santos. Opens Fri, Feb 29.
3 Stars
A few minutes into City of Men, Ace (Douglas Silva), an 18-year-old security guard living in one of Rio de Janeiro’s crowded slums, awakens to find his wife leaving for work. The room is cramped and flooded with harsh, white sunshine and his toddler son, whimpering as he sucks a pacifier, is looking up at dad expectantly. In return, Ace looks back with cool resentment. It’s a subtle but unsettling moment, perfectly setting up an examination of fatherhood that might transcend any cultural gaps... at least it would if it weren’t for all the gang warfare.
City of Men (produced by Fernando Meirelles, director of 2002’s City of God) is an action film at heart. Like Meirelles’ film, the story hinges on well-armed gangs battling for control of their neighbourhoods. What’s nice, though, is that action is peripheral to the way relationships develop, quite literally, in the crossfire. Besides looking at Ace and his kid, City of Men also focuses on the efforts of his best friend Wallace (Darlan Cunha) to locate his own absent father. A wonderful symbiosis arises: Ace is there to help Wallace track down his dad; Wallace is there to convince Ace that a childhood without a father is tough. As a result, the action of City of Men becomes vital and interesting because of its potential to sever that bond. And since explaining much more would spoil most of the film’s intricate and surprising plot, which does much to bring us into Rio’s stunning culture of gangs and brutality, I’ll stop there.
Instead, some comparison to City of God is in order. The films are intended as companion pieces, but it’s probably fair to describe City of Men as an attempt to piggyback on Meirelles’ previous success. There are too many similarities between them to argue otherwise: gang warfare, Rio, slums, a lot of harshly and deliberately overexposed cinematography, shared lead actors, the whole City of Such-and-Such thing, and so on. Really, it’s a shame that City of Men wasn’t set up to stand more on its own—there’s a self-conscious quality to the film as it tries to conform to a genre the makers themselves are obviously working to establish. In the end, the names do reflect how they rank in terms of quality.
And even if you haven’t seen City of God (if not, do so), City of Men may still seem somewhat contrived, as screenwriter Elena Soarez indulges in some serious strongarming of both story and character. For instance, after Wallace finds his father early in the film, Dad too quickly overcomes his reluctance to accept his son, the emotional tension between the two men dissipated by a little one-on-one soccer followed by sporty hugging.
Maybe City of Men is just too anxious to make plain the tensions between fathers and sons—and perhaps too eager to resolve them. And yet, this is forgivable. The characters of City of Men aspire to so much. And that they do so despite the poverty and violence in their lives is touching and hopeful, even if it isn’t quite as sublime as Meirelles might have liked.
