I have chosen to analyse the 2006 fantasy film Pans labyrinth by Guillermo del Toro. This film is set in 1944 during the Spanish civil war and follows Ophelia, a little girl who is secretly a princess in a fantasy world whilst chaos and war happens around her with her fascist stepdad at the centre of it all. I have chosen to analyse the resolution of the film between 1.46.45 and 1.51.45. In this section, Ophelia has just been shot by her stepdad and is slowly dying. The fascist captain is consequentially killed as a result of killing his stepdaughter. Ophelia is ‘reborn’ into a fantasy world and is reunited with her parents whilst the guerrillas mourn her death. To analyse this section, I am going to focus on Mise En scene ,visual motifs, editing and Film makers influences.

I have chosen Fernando Meirelles’ 2002 crime/drama film, City of God for my textual analysis. The film is set during the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1980s and follows what life is like for residents of a slum in Rio de Janeiro during a bloody gang war focusing on a character called Rocket who is a young aspiring photographer trying to escape the slum. I have chosen the section of the film between 1:53:00 – 1:57:00 which is during the climax of the film. In this scene antagonist Lil Z is captured and robbed by corrupt police and then gunned down by the “runts” of the slum to take over his business. The scene is mainly shot through the perspective of Rocket who is photographing the whole event which ends up landing him an internship at a printing company. To analyse this section, I am focusing on cinematography, editing and critical response.

Film – City of God

Scene – 1:53 – 1:57

Film Elements – Cinematography, Editing, Narrative

Film: City of God

Scene 35:55 – 38:51 

Film elements: Editing, Narrative

Pans labyrinth – 2006

time signature – 1.46.45 – 1.51.45

Film element focus – mise en scene, Film makers influences, motif, narrative,

Historical and social contexts

Film: City of God

Chosen Scene: 1:10:51 to 1:15:51 Benny dies
Film element focus: Narrative, editing, cinematography, genre

Film: Roma, Citta Aperta (Rossellini,1945)

Chosen Scene: Don Pietro’s Execution (The Ending) 01:32:48 – 01:36:54 (4:06 Minutes)

Film Element Focuses: Motif, Sound, Mise-En-Scene, Critical Reception

Film – City of God (Meirelles & Lund, 2002)

Chosen Scene – opening (0.00.50 – 0.05.50)

Film Element Focus – Sound, Editing, Mise en Scene

Link to Film – City of God

City of God’s “Lil Dice/Lil Ze” sequence begins at 00:38:48, and ends at 00:43:48 (exactly 5 minutes), detailing the point from Lil Ze correcting Blacky on his new name, through the narration of his story growing up, to his being newly Christened as Ze in the alleyway.

Film elements I want to focus on in my writing include Editing (the montage elements are very clever, there’s a lot to talk about there), Sound (the use of music especially corresponds to the sequence’s momentum), Influences (Quentin Tarantino is important, as well as one can use this space to blend the referencing of cultural context, and the autobiography the movie is adapting – as well as the Lund documentary News from a Private War, which features one of CoG’s directors and covers the same topics of crime in Brazilian favelas) and Critical Reception (incidents with drug arrests in and around movie showings at the time harshly painted how the movie was seen in Brazil at the time, links again into context)

Links to remember:
https://movies.stackexchange.com/questions/14797/who-is-this-man-changing-the-name-of-little-dice-to-lill-z (not a source but contains one)
https://www.jstor.org/stable/26996489 (worth looking at)
Wikipedia stuff about Candomble (look into Wiki’s citations)
and Wikipedia stuff about Olurun
of course also Wiki stuff on City of God itself (and more importantly the sites it cites, provided they remain accessible)
https://books.google.je/books?id=bwYlDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA93&lpg=PA93&dq=lil+ze+necklace&source=bl&ots=KPPL8H-lE0&sig=ACfU3U0wNhn7Um-NTbNSdNFqkQVu28vzjg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi8lKOtvqHzAhWTSsAKHSpmA5UQ6AF6BAgfEAM#v=twopage&q&f=false
Source-News From a Personal War (on DVD featurettes, Lund, 1997??)
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2003-jan-24-et-munoz24-story.html
Score by Antonio Pinto – “Meu Nome e Ze” – free on Soundcloud (and on Spotify but on there it won’t play in UK) – https://soundcloud.com/antonio-pinto/14-meu-nome-ze?in=antonio-pinto/sets/city-of-god
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-23333368
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-latin-america-12801078
City of God 10 years on, Source documentary
https://www.worldcat.org/title/new-brazilian-cinema/oclc/55808559
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2003/jan/03/artsfeatures2
https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/city-god-review/
https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/city-of-god-2003
https://www.gamesradar.com/the-total-film-interview-robert-altman/
https://www.top10films.co.uk/1712-review-city-of-god/
https://introductiontocinema.wordpress.com/2016/05/03/pulp-fictioncity-of-god/
https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/city-of-gods-an-interview-with-fernando-meirelles/
https://nextbillion.net/city-of-gods/
http://archive.boston.com/ae/movies/articles/2008/02/29/city_of_men_is_a_safer_return_to_rio/