While watching City of God, I was overcome with the feeling of hopelessness of life that the less fortunate might bare. Beyond just the conditions that residents endure in a favela, Brazilian slums where gangsters and drugs define the social order, the actions of nearly all the characters did not contribute to progress in their own life or impact in the lives of others and seemed ultimately meaningless. Perhaps it’s the fact that the story crosses multiple generations stretching back to the 60’s, which has given time the opportunity to erode the memories of the events and our ability to sense their impact. Or it could be that stories that unfold on another continent don’t easily find their way into the lives of others. The cycle of power and content of Brazilian authorities served to compound these issues as I felt the film gave an oddly nihilistic impression concerning the lives of the poor in a land without law.

One big way the movie conveys the low regard for life in the favela is the amount of death portrayed in the film. During the turf war, countless numbers of gangsters from both factions are murdered as the film jumps from scene to scene of the bloody dispute. While the life of a gangster who terrorized the town and took part in murders might seem less important, the span of time covered by the film allows viewers to watch the transformation of children to mobsters. Since youth, these children dream of owning a gun and being a successful gangster, perfectly demonstrating how dreams or even hopes of greater accomplishments are non-existent in the favela. The most blatant show of disrespect for the value of life comes from Li’l Z, a pathological killer who revels in the stardom of being the most powerful boss. As a child, L’il Z is capable of killing tourist, friends, and children. He plays games with the lives of children who have never brought him harm and feels obligated to return to the house of a man whose wife he killed in order to finish the husband as well. As he is arguably the centerpiece of the movie, Li’l Z’s brutal actions perhaps reveals the indifference the film has regarding life.

Though death may be common in the favela, there is still a chance to make a change with one’s short, hard life, but as City of God shows, residents are trapped and even lured into playing the cycle of power inherent in slums. Even if the countless gangsters avoided a turf war and Li’l Z’s propensity for killing was quelled, the residents of the town follow the same cycle across all three generations. There will be a younger generation who overthrow the old in order to build a brief empire of drugs and weapons, only to be toppled by a more ruthless youth. With the exception of Rocket, a reporter who narrates the repeating generational struggle, every child from the favela followed this cycle while never bringing any change or aspiring to be something above the unfortunate life they were born into. Again the film hints that the lives of children in the favela are doomed to be inconsequential and live out the unchanging cycle.

To the outside world, whether the residents of the favela were alive or dead seems to have no impact, reinforcing the mood of nihilism. The journey of the characters would only live on in print of forgotten newspaper headlines or the single memory of Rocket. It’s less a concern of whether the events actually occurred, it’s about the fact the events could very well have occurred and life would carry on for everyone else as if they never happened. To live a life where no impact was made, even towards improving the system you were unfortunately born into, is a tragedy.