COMMENTARY
Brazilian 'City of God' gets Hollywood's attention
By Cristina Coleman-Rosa
Special to The Advertiser
Forget about who's wearing what on the red carpet. Never mind the (predictable) jokes, the musical performances and the melodramatic acceptance speeches. This year, there is something really exciting to talk about on Oscar night.
I call your attention to "City of God," a Brazilian film with four major Academy Award nominations.
The film, a sort of "Pulp Fiction" meets "Godfather" in the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, tells of two best friends with different destinies: From their childhood in the 1960s, one grows up to be the king of narcotrafficking in his "city" (one of Rio's housing projects), while the narrator, an outcast in his own world, escapes the ghetto to become a photographer.
What's the big fuss about? Well, a lot, actually. Stephen Holden, a film critic for the New York Times, for instance, compares the stylistic choices of director Fernando Meirelles to Martin Scorsese's in "Goodfellas" and "Gangs of New York." For Holden, the movie's frenetic visual rhythms and mood swings are "a little like attending a children's birthday party that goes wildly out of control."
"Cidade de Deus" was shot in Portuguese; was produced and finalized entirely in Brazil; and, despite its intimidating subtitles and its 130 minutes of fantastical, but based-in-real-life violence, has created a sensation in Brazil, France (Cannes) and among critics through out the world. Backed by U.S. film company Miramax, it has been considered a box-office success in the United States.
In 2003, the film was not selected for the Oscar's best foreign film category. But now the academy seems to have bowed to its powers of translation, giving the film four opportunities to be recognized.
"I never expected that a film spoken in Portuguese could ever be nominated for best adapted screenplay," said writer Braulio Mantovani, as he learned about his own nomination in Toronto.
Just the thought that a group of people in Hollywood actually took interest in the Portuguese best-selling novel by Paulo Lins (who grew up in Cidade de Deus), then decided that Mantovani's accomplishments were comparable to those in "American Splendor" and "Mystic River" (both nominees in the same category) is a tribute to the emerging Brazilian film industry.
Despite being the fifth-most-spoken language in the world, Portuguese is not commonly associated in the United States with cultural, political or economically distinctive ideas. This film was powerful enough to surpass that obstacle.
The Oscar acknowledgment for "City of God" touches the tip of a larger iceberg. It is further indication that the golden Hollywood era, when Greek gods, French leaders, Spanish lovers and many other historic and mythological characters wound across the silver screen speaking perfect and effortless English, has come to an end.
Close your eyes and try to imagine Elizabeth Taylor, as Cleopatra, confessing her love in Egyptian. Things have definitely changed. This nomination foretells a new cinematic revolution.
In addition to Best Adapted Screenplay, "City of God" has been nominated for best film editing, best cinematography and directing. This is not the first time that a Brazilian film has received an Oscar nomination, nor the first time that a foreign movie has been acknowledged outside its Foreign Film category. Nevertheless, to have a motion picture from Latin American nominated for four major categories, including best directing, is unheard of.
In the last 76 years, only seven other foreign directors have been selected by the academy. Meirelles sits now in this category along with European icons such as Frederico Fellini, Ingmar Bergman and Roman Polanski.
The style of Fernando Meirelles' "City of God" has been compared to Quentin Tarantino's and John Woo's films. Fair enough, his TV, video and advertising background has given a cutting-edge approach to his productions. But Meirelles' talents go beyond that. In his homeland, he has been credited with, among other things, the success of "Domesticas" ("Maids," 2001), a comedy/documentary about the life of domestic servants in Sao Paulo, and "Ra-Tim-Bum," a clever, entertaining and yet educational children's TV program on the level of "Sesame Street."
Who is the Oscar going to go to? Hard to say. But for better or worse, Shakespeare's mother language is no longer the only one heard in major blockbuster theaters in America, and "City of God" is more proof of that.
Cristina Coleman-Rosa, 29, is a visual artist and designer who lives in Honolulu.
