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City of Men is Paulo Morelli’s companion piece to Fernando Meirelles’s City of God. Both take place in the favelas (slums) of Rio de Janeiro. Both are stories of gangs and violence. That violence is what defines life in these slums. City of Men is also connected to a Brazilian TV series by the same name that the two directors have been involved in, which focuses on the characters in this film.

Ace and Wallace are best friends who in time will end up on different sides of a gang war they really have no interest in. But such alliances are part of life in the slums. These are young men who have grown up without fathers. Neither knows anything about their fathers. Ace, who is now a father himself, doesn’t care anymore, but Wallace is constantly searching. When he eventually finds his father, it is less satisfying than he had hoped, but he does at least get something of importance from him—a name on his birth record. We also learn about Ace’s father and his connection with Wallace’s father—a connection that could bring acrimony into the boys’ relationship.

City of Men is not nearly as intense or violent as City of God. That’s not to say it is neither, but I didn’t come from the theater feeling as though I had been assaulted. It is probably helpful to have City of God in mind while watching, though, so we know the context for the violence that is here. The battles for gang ownership of the hill show us that the issues from City of God have not changed over the years; it is all the same, just different people killing and being killed.

In my review of City of God, I mentioned that God seemed to be absent from the favela. In City of Men, it is interesting to consider what manhood means, and especially with reference to fatherhood. Fathers seem to be absent in the slum, at least Wallace’s and Ace’s fathers. Without those influences, how can we expect people not to seek the sense of belonging that is found in gangs? Ace also has to deal with the demands of fatherhood. His wife has left to go work in Sao Paulo (where ironically she works as a nanny), so Ace has to parent his son alone. Can he father this child without the experience of being fathered himself?

The Bible and other writings (such as Shakespeare and Euripides) have noted that the sins of the fathers are often visited upon their children. In the Rio slums this generational passing on of sins and penalties seems to be without end. Perhaps, as with Ace and Wallace, there is a hope of becoming more or better than their fathers, but the omnipresent violence seems to either snuff out that hope or the lives of those with the hope.

A key difference between City of Men and the City of God is that this film actually gives us a bit of hope that that curse of a father’s sins can indeed be broken. Sins can be overcome, even if they go back for generations.