O utracie niewinności poprzez okrutny rytuał
The loss of innocence through a cruel ritual

Summary/Abstract: Favelas, poverty districts in Rio de Janeiro, live at their own rhythm. The film "City of God" ( "Cidade de Deus"), by Brazilian Fernando Meirellesa, shows the image of Brazil as a coutry of samba, carnival and beautiful wild nature, but complemented with violence, chaos and living for a dollar a day. The viewer enters the world deprived of the elements of fiction, in which people live in small, provisionally built houses; watches a series of extremes: love and hate, pride and madness, friendship and contempt. Childhood is at this point only a short memory, which is quickly replaced by the need of dealing with brutal reality. Even those who wish to escape from the favelas - mostly go back there because the other world does not exist for them. It is difficult to leave the area of social exclusion. Katarzyna Kolbowska mentions that the "City of God" did not arouse as huge interest in the home country, as for example in Europe. Perhaps Brazilian viewers do not want to see violence, which is really several streets away. Meanwhile, the movie is not a glorification of lawlessness, just like Brazilian hip-hop songs do not glorify it. For young musicians the brutality of everyday life is "natural" and the sounds of gun shots are not surprising; it is something very common in the streets of favelas. Hence, the stories in the texts of songs are unusual visions of places from which they come from, and still unknown by the rest of the world.

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