City of God

It's understandable why Roger Ebert claimed this was one of the best films ever made. After years of indepedent cinema and gitty stories that appeased violence for exploitive means, City of God was the biggest and best film of them all. Scorsese and Tarantino gave violent films a critical acceptance so its obvious that City of God would be compared next to the giants of the film world. Technically, the praise is justified. The film has a very large story in 20 years to tell, but wraps it within an array of camera innovations and stylized storytelling. The effects never become redudant or repititive. The film has a lot to offer and shows that Meirelles had a lot of years in television work before tackling this story. His technical handling is never questioned. The story and depth of the themes are. City of God is in the vein of Goodfellas and other trendy violent films where depth is unseen or rationalized in awful ways. City of God offers very little new by way of characterization. The success is in the filmmaking. The good thing about Meirelles is that he did move on with his next feature and extend the talent of his camera abilities to an organic story. The praise here is for the pure talent within the film.