City of God opening analysis

0.00-5.01 This is the ‘action packed’ opening sequence for City of God. The sequence starts with upbeat music, there is a black out showing only the credits, then the audience is surprised by a grinding noise and a clip of a knife being sharpened, the music behing this is emotion provoking, it is very upbeat and goes with the clip well. The camera then changes to the whole area, we see many people, someone barbequing, a band playing the music. We are also shown the preparation of food and some random chicken parts, primarily feet. The camera now focuses on a chicken hutch, there is an extremely stressed chicken, the chicken shows lots of human actions, this is a result of the camera work, the chicken is not told to look stressed, the editing and camera work create a stressful atmosphere and the viewer associates the knives, the barbeque, the taking of other chickens and the stressful chicken with butchery. The viewer becomes attached to the chicken and wants it to escape its inevitable fate, the chicken then has a chance to escape, seizing this opportunity, the chicken jumps away from it’s prison. The chicken is now followed by the camera, still escaping. There is now an introduction to an important looking man, he is the first to talk in the film, which signifies to the viewer that he will be important in the forthcoming film. The chicken is now chased by a gang wielding knives and guns, they shoot at the chicken regardless to what other people around might think. We are now introduced to two more characters, they are talking about how they want to get out of the slum, the viewer knows straight away that they will have a struggle in this process, and that the gang that are trying to get the chicken will make it hard for this to happen. Now we go back and forth between the chase and the conversation, the conversation is about a picture, this is a picture that would get the character a job but would put him in danger, they are talking about the decision they will have to make and that if “Li’l ze” finds out he will be dead, but then “Li’l ze”, the leader of the chicken chasing gang, comes round the corner. The chicken is between the gang and the boys, the gang force one of the boys to get the chicken at gun point, this evokes stress, a very good camera angle is used to show the chicken between the two groups. The police then turn up, the camera spins around the boy getting the chicken, then he narrates, saying that “in the City of God, if you run, the catch you, and if you stay, they catch you”, this shows the viewer that he cannot do anything to change the current situation or the situation with the picture. The camera now spins again and the narrator says that it has been this way since he was a child, the camera spins into the same shot on a football pitch and he is a child. The audience now know that the film will focus on him. The audience see that the character is bad at football, we are then introduced to him through narration, he meets two boys. We are now told about Shaggy and the Tender Trio, this is the end of the opening sequence, Shaggy kicks the ball in the air and shoots it. Next to the ball is white text, which says "the story of the tender trio"