‘What is the importance of genre and/or Narrative in creating meaning and generating response in City of God and La Haine?’.

‘What is the importance of genre and/or Narrative in creating meaning and generating response in City of God and La Haine?’.

 

City of God is set into different segments to explain three different stories in the City of God (Cidade de Deus) which are;

 

·      The tender trio

·      Lil Ze and the drug dealers

·      Knockout Ned

 

 This is a slightly more complex narrative than just a simple linear narrative but it has its reasons for this. This fills the audience in on information that is ultimately vital to understand what is going on and why the characters are in these positions. But on top of this is the film uses this to show how the city as a character has developed.

 

The City of God itself can be classed as the main character in this film, even though we follow Rockets narration, through the sixties and seventies we see the development of the city. In the sixties with the tender trio roaming the small town seems to have a very calm and happy atmosphere as the kids play football and even the crimes are still minimal with a no killing policy in place with the trio representing itself and the people inside It getting the best out of what they have and being content with the smallest things.  This is of course before Lil Dice (Ze) kills all the people in the hotel.

 

The city then declines into the grasp of Lil Ze becoming so much more confined and claustrophobic. In the 60’s we get very wide shots while in the 70’s there is no space for a wide shot without a wall coming into shot.  We also notice that as the film gets further in and Lil Ze gets more powerful the shots get even tighter and confined showing the grasp that Lil Ze has on the city itself.

 

During the war between Lil Ze and knockout Ned this is the same, the shots are tighter but one thing we do notice is that with time it is getting darker as if this was all in a day even though it is set over several years, giving us a climactic feeling.

 

 After Lil Ze is killed there is almost a relief shown in the camera shots as there seems to be a little bit more freedom with it showing that the grasp Lil Ze had on the city has been lifted.

 

The film also uses a circular narrative as the film begins with the scene of the chicken escaping and then ends in the same way. This is a signifier of the cycle that goes on after Lil Ze dies. Lil Dice begins out getting picked on by the bigger criminals and quenches his need to kill, as he grows up he is then the one who picks on the little kids such as in when he gets one of the runts to choose one of the kids to shoot otherwise he will die.  In the end it turns out being the runts who kill Lil Ze and in return the cycle starts all over again as the narrative suggests.

 

In La Haine the film is set over 16 hours to try and portray a day in the life of three segregated minority youths in a powerful way.  The film does not suggest that all these things happen to three youths every day, it is trying to get across that these are the issues that the segregated youths have to live with and if they don’t, they die.

 

The 16 hours is signified by a ticking clock that appears on the screen after every scene, this gives the audience a sense of inevitability keeping us on the edge of our seats waiting for the moment to come.

 

The structure of this is also important in the sense of a sort of circular narrative too. The action code that mainly drives the narrative forward is the gun which Vinz finds and fuels his desire to kill a police officer if Abdel dies which ultimately he does, but after this happens Vinz has already come to and realised its not the right thing to do after Hubert stops him throughout. Straight after giving Hubert the gun he is then taken by the police officer who in the end accidentally shoots Vinz after all he had gone through to convince himself not to shoot a cop.