452ºF (Jan 2010)
Commercial Genre in evidence: Does the film City of God Manipulate Reality?
Abstract
This article seeks to discuss whether or not the reality of life in a West Rio the Janeiro favela, as depicted in the 2002 film "City of God", has been manipulated. With this discursive proposition as starting point, the essay will attempt to contextualise the way the plot was rendered, and to question the degree to which it resembles reality, as well as its adaptation to the gangster genre which gives rise to the feeling that, within a real context, this is a ‘fabricated story’: what international audiences would see as the exotic world of the favela.
