Fernando Meirelles makes crowded stories move quickly without losing the people in them. We rate him highly for City of God, though his eagerness to keep us watching can leave too little time for the suffering to register.
Fi1m perspective
A chicken chase opens City of God (2002), and Fernando Meirelles makes a small pursuit feel dangerous before we have settled into our seats. Editor Daniel Rezende cuts at speed without losing the action, then brings the same clarity to a story moving backwards and forwards through time. This is gang warfare in a Rio favela across decades, with plenty of lives to keep track of. Meirelles makes it possible to notice how people behave rather than spend the next scene working out where they belong.
Kátia Lund co-directed the film, and its cast includes non-professional actors from favelas. Bráulio Mantovani's screenplay, adapted from Paulo Lins's novel, keeps those lives distinct without labouring over introductions. We were horrified by the armed children, because their youth remains so visible when they expect a street to obey them. Meirelles lets us see what they are learning about power without needing to explain it. His speed helps here: violence spreads before anyone has much time to question it.
The difficulty comes when he keeps the excitement going after violence has done its damage. In City of God, a flourish of cutting can arrive before the suffering has registered, and Mantovani's voiceover sometimes emphasises what the images have already made clear. We wanted him to stay with the people who had been hurt for a little longer. That impatience does not cancel the film's care for them, but it makes some of its violence too easy to enjoy.
The international turn brought The Constant Gardener (2005), his first major English-language feature, then Blindness (2008), adapted from José Saramago's novel. By The Two Popes (2019), the subjects included institutional power and personal faith, with Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce in the cast. He has repeatedly worked with cinematographer César Charlone, and favours handheld images and fragmented stories. Start with City of God, and leave time afterwards to argue about how much a crime film should entertain us.
Biography
Fernando Meirelles is a Brazilian film director, producer and screenwriter. He was born on 9 November 1955 in São Paulo and studied architecture at the University of São Paulo.
Meirelles co-directed City of God (2002) with Kátia Lund. The film received international acclaim and earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Director. He later directed The Constant Gardener (2005), for which he received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Director; Blindness (2008); 360 (2011); and The Two Popes (2019).
He founded the production company O2 Filmes in the early 1990s. In television he has directed series including Sugar (2024) and The Sympathizer (2024).
