City of God

“City of God” takes us to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Based on a true story, the film shows us a dark side of the city Rio de Janeiro. Most of the film takes place in western Rio de Janeiro in Cidade de Deus, which means City of God in Portuguese. This area would be considered the slums. The film is takes us on a journey through the point of view of an actor named Rocket. We watch as Rocket is subjected to crime and poverty as he grows up. Rocket makes friends along the way while trying not to get on the bad side of the crime bosses. Rockets childhood acquaintances Lil Ze and Benny become two of the biggest crime bosses by killing off all the bosses except one. Rocket watches as the one gang left, which is ran by Carrot finds itself at an all out turf war with Lil Ze. Rocket chooses to stay out of gang activity and tries to rise out of the slums by getting a job at the newspaper. This is Rockets big break which takes him farther than he could have imagined.

Violence and Drug use are a huge problem in Rio. Mostly these problems are located in the favelas, which refers to shanty slum areas. As we see in the film there is great majority of youths from these areas that partake in the drugs and the crime. These youth would be considered foot soldiers. Leaders of the gangs have much of their dirty work done by these youths because of lesser penalties. According to the film’s special edition cut, one person dies in Rio de Janeiro every half hour. 90% are shot by large caliber bullets.

A prevalent theme in the movie is the drug use. The gangs in the film see this as their great opportunity to make big money. Drug trafficking employs 100,000 people in Rio de Janeiro, which is also mentioned in the special edition of the DVD. This actually the same number of people that the city has on its payroll. The first Tuesday of every month, the Rio police force brings all there confiscated drugs for the month to a certain junkyard. The drugs are incinerated in a high temperature oven. This takes about two hours to burn them all. The police confiscate on an average between 200 kilos and up to 3 or 4 tons a month in drugs.

I thought the “City of God” was a great movie. Though, I would not recommend to people with weak stomachs. It was a very violent film and had some disturbing scenes. I thought the directors did a great job at capturing the realness of this true story. Though, it is not really a happy story but a story that needed to be told. “City of God” educates the viewer on the ongoing problems that are happening in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. The picture that is above this paragraph is a favela neighborhood. I would recommend this film to others in the future.

The Syrian Bride

“The Syrian Bride” takes us to the Golan Heights, which is located in the middle of Israel, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. In the film we learn of the struggles of a family faced with political borders that are tearing them apart. The story centers on a girl named Mona, who is getting ready to marry a man from Syria. Mona is from Golan Heights and will not be able to return home to ever see her family again after she gets married. This is due to the Arab-Israeli conflict. The film shows us the difficulties faced by Mona and her family to get her across the border to get married. Finally after six months she gets approved to cross the border. Though when she finally get to cross she is upheld by political red tape.


Mona has a religious family that is Druze, which is a traditional religion of an offshoot of Islam. Mona is to be married to a fellow Druze across the border. This is family tradition and is not always followed as we see her brother in the movie is married to a Russian doctor. He is seen shunned by his father in the film. Even though Mona gets her request granted she is still held up at the border stuck in political tape.

Since the Six-day war in 1967, Israel has occupied the area of Golan Heights. This left many citizens in this area who were Syrian. In the film the town of Majdal Shams is Mona’s hometown. Majdal Shams is the largest of the four Druze villages in Golan Heights. In the film we see that there are divided loyalties in the community. Many of the citizens are pro Israeli and the others are pro Syrian. This creates a rift within the community.

"The Syrian Bride" gives us a chance to look into the struggles that face the citizens of Golan Heights. Educationaly it enable us to understand how things got to be the way they are and the sturggles that it creates. This film does a great job at bringing these issues to the forefront. Before viewing this view I had little knowledge on this difficult to understand topic.

The Band's Visit

We head to the Israel in the movie “The Bands Visit”. This movie follows an Egyptian Police band as it tries to find its way to an initiation ceremony, in which they were invited to play at. Coming from Egypt the band finds itself in trouble as it is abandon at the airport. This is the begging of their troubles. The band finally gets a bus, but mispronounces the town and heads in the wrong direction and they find themselves in a tiny Israeli community in the middle of the desert. Friction between locals and the band seem likely because of different cultures present but is not the case. The town takes them in and embraces them. This is a story of encounters between people, encounters between cultures and coming together of different people.

“The Band’s Visit” is a movie that the plot really plays second fiddle to the characters. In this movie you really focus on what the characters are about and what their story is. The bands struggle to get the initiation ceremony is really secondary. We focus on mostly three characters. The head chief conductor of the band is Tawfig. Tawfig is a very meticulous and has a restrained personality. He is very professional and we later find out he has a painful personal story. Our second character is Dina. Dina is the owner of a small restaurant who takes the band in and encourages other citizens they should do the same. Dina has lightness to her personality and a positive joy. She also seems vulnerable at times with certain loneliness. She is attracted to Tawfig and what underlies beneath his closed shelled personality. Our third character is Haled. Haled is the youngest member of the band. He seems to not be enjoying himself as part of the band. He seems to want to do other things and be free from the band. Haled seems out of place with the band and wants to venture out and meet girls and have fun.

The movie gets through to its viewers a bigger idea than the plot offers through its revealing of its characters. The movie shows that no matter what cultural back ground, people share many similarities. Hopes, dreams, and personal struggles are really universal. “The Bands Visit” shows people that its possible for certain cultures to get along regardless of historical past.

The movie’s underlying factor is the Arab- Israeli conflict. These people have been in conflict for many years. In the 20th century the Arabs have initiated four wars with Israel. So you can understand that in the movie the citizens of the tiny Israeli town were not ready to accept their new visitors at first.

I believe the movie “The Band’s Visit” is not only an entertaining movie but also educational. Many different educational aspects are shown in the film. Landscapes are show which give the viewer mental image of the area. Pop cultures such as music and night life are shown, which lets us know of similarities we might have with the area. Also we get to see the “big picture”, which is ability of peoples of different cultures of war torn countries to actually find peace and commonality with one another.