City of God Movie - Case Study Example

 The City of God movie captures the importance of life in the slum of Rio de Janeiro. It explodes on screen with high color, and a lot of violence. It is a Brazilian film that is based on a true life-story of a young man who managed to save himself from a preordained fate, when he became a photographer. Violence and drugs are two major developmental issues that are synonymous in “The City of God.” This essay will give a deep discussion and analysis of urban crime and youth gangs in the movie. The director, Fernando Meirelles, uses the best techniques possible to bring out the sharp scenes of murder, drugs, and the ever increasing violence that spins throughout the movie. Urban crime and youth gang are a sensitive issue that comes out in the movie, “The City of God.” The life of people in “The City of God” is determined by these issues. It is even more surprising to realize that the life expectancy of teenagers is just a few years past their teenage age. Violence is a hindrance to development. In any economy, development will only take place if people have peace of mind. People cannot work where there is no peace (Mumford 27). The City of God has very many developmental plans for the future. They want to construct roads, build better housing facilities and improve the level of education among the people. All these things are possible if violence can be stopped. With the high level of crimes, even workers cannot get peace to work. If, for example, roads were to be constructed, the construction workers would require a lot of peace to work on their project successfully. However, investors will only go to a place that has peace, and good governance. People will not be comfortable working in places where they wake up in the morning and find the bodies of people thrown at their business premises; it is scary and disturbing, even in the mind (Sivaram 77). Economic development comes after infrastructural development (Wilson, 36). Investors want to invest in a place that has good security, good roads as well as an adequate supply of water and electricity. The City of God has roads, electricity and water. However, these entire things have not been made to that level that investors would want. Besides, with the poor security, no one would want to invest there. The level of insecurity is very sickening because, even a 12 year old can have a revolver. In the movie, the audience is shown an 18 year old graduate, who is controlling major gangs in the city. He has managed to kill the people who were initially at the top of the drug industry, and is almost getting to the top of it, where he can be the largest drug dealer. Security is a basic need and one of the most important things that everyone would look at before going to invest or live in any place (Fu-Lai 56). It doesn’t have to be only investors, even people who want to change their place of residence will always consider the security of the potential places that they are likely to live. To make matters worse, the police are also very corrupt, and facilitates criminal activities in the city. Research indicates that most of the cities that have shown a high prevalence of criminal activities have corrupt police officers and in most cases, the criminals collaborate with the police officers (Sivaram 79). It is not right to defend the police officers in the City of God and say that they are doing their work. In most cases, they know whatever is going on, but they do not want to help curb the situation, since they also benefit from whatever crimes that goes on in the city. Mumford (36) says that labor is another important factor for the development of any place. There should be sufficient labor; sufficient labor means enough labor in all major fields of work. There should be people available to work on low earning income jobs, the middle income and the top earning, technical jobs that require a lot of knowledge and skills (Fu-Lai 60). This means that there should be a balance of the economy, ranging from the lowly learned, to the highly learned. In the City of God, a child matures and becomes an adult by the age of nine years old. At 12, the child is mature enough to lead a gang, and by the age of 20, most children are usually dead. This means that there is a very low number of people who are learning. In such an economy, if development was to take place, labor would be imported, and this would be expensive. There are very low number of highly skilled and experienced people, because life does not allow them to live and get the experience that they need to work. Development is hence very difficult at such a place. Most children are starting to get in drug’s business. It is evident from the movie that children want to be the leading drug lords in the City. Their life is full of war and crimes, as each one of them tries to climb up the ladder in the business of selling drugs. They bring up young armies, with guns and dangerous weaponry, and most of them end up losing their lives before they grow old enough. If this trend continues, then probably, in the next few years, this city will be dominated by the aged generation, and the economy will come to a stand still. Development depends on various issues. However, there are some basic things that must be enacted in any place, if development is to take place. Peace is one of them. People will be willing to work in places that have a low level of crime and a good business environment. However, if the police can work with gangs, then it will be difficult to maintain peace. An environment that is controlled by a few people, who want to have it all, cannot attract investors, and development. A place where everyone lives and survives by the guns poses a threat to development. The government should hence seek for ways of controlling the levels of crime in such places, and implement effective policies that will ensure that utmost security is put in place. Children should be allowed to go to school, and taught about the importance of peace in the society. If this can be successful, development will be easy too. Works Cited Fu-Lai, Tony Yu. Taiwan’s Economic Transformation in Evolutionary Perspective. New York: Nova Science Publishers, 2007. Print. Mumford, Lewis. The Urban Prospect: Planning for the phases of life. London: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1968. Print. Sivaram, Lee. The Brazilian City of God Critic. London: Sage Publication, 2004. Print. Wilson Julias. From Institutional to Jobless Ghetto; From when work disappears; the world of the new urban poor. New York: Cengage Publishers, 2006. Print Read More