Rationale for Study

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City of God is a superb example of Brazilian national cinema. It is also an international film that secured worldwide distribution and critical acclaim. Its settings in a Rio de Janeiro favela are ‘authentically’ Brazilian and the language is Portuguese, but there are enough genre characteristics to invite comparisons with Hollywood ‘hood’ films. The flamboyant and stylish spectacle of violence and poverty is narrated by a man/boy/observer of the action Buscapé/Rocket the photographer, making it an excellent film for study in terms of film form and spectatorship.