City of God

Mise-en-scene

In the opening scenes of City of God, the mise-en-scene is in complete contrast to the ending of the film. In the opening the buildings that make up the city are nice, have structure and are in good condition, in comparison to the, what has become, slums in the later part of the film. This shows the generational decline in society and how things have changed over decades of different powers that be in the city. 

One part of evidence is the infamous City of God sign, which is a prime example of deterioration and decline. During the scene in which the Tender Trio hold up a gas truck the City of God sign is clearly visible in the background and it's almost brand new, untouched and this represents City of God throughout the time of the Tender Trio committing more petty crimes than what would happen in the future; in contrast, the scene in which Rocket returns to the City of God to photograph L'il Ze the sign can then be seen in the background, in the same place it was over a decade earlier, however the sign is ridden with graffiti, it's rusted and starting to corrode and is barely visible. The sign is a visual motif for decline throughout the film, it is also worthy to note that the sign is one of the only motifs throughout the film that stay the same in a place constantly changing.
The motif of the sign also links to the generational decline in the city. Starting off with the Tender Trio, who for the most part performed petty crimes, holding little shops up and holding gas wagons passing through for not a great amount of money. Then, for the most part of the film L'il Ze takes the reigns of the booming drug business that had evolved over the years as crime gradually became worse, L'il Ze started partaking in crime of a brutal nature, not just petty hold ups and he became bloodthirsty and loved to kill. Mise-en-scene shows this through the decline in living standards as at the start the City of God is bright, sunny, colourful and also well established. However when L'il Ze effectively takes over the City of God is a favela, shacks built upon shacks and no sunlight can even break through due to how high and wide the rusty slums had been built. Furthermore, L'il Ze is eventually killed by the runts, 12 year old and younger boys, right at the end of the film and one can only assume the generation of runts are more bloodthirsty than L'il Ze ever was.

Montage

The main connotations behind the montage of shots which show L'il Dice becoming L'il Ze are that as he gets older his thirst for money and his thirst to kill become greater and greater. In contrast to the Tender Trio who started with petty crime the montage shows L'il Dice killing from as young as 10 or 11 at the motel hold up; and throughout the montage L'il Ze is either killing or talking about killing. Another connotation of the montage is to simply show L'il Dice becoming L'il Ze as he sells his soul to the devil in the ritual scene which implicates he has no good left inside, he has no morals and does not feel empathy or sympathy which are normal human emotions, however it could be argued he never did as in the motel scene, as a young child, he laughs and smirks after killing multiple innocent people which shows his lack of human emotion before he even became L'il Ze. Another connotation behind the montage are the low angle shots throughout, this is the main way throughout the film L'il Ze's power is shown as it represents him as powerful and dominant. Most of the murders in the montage of L'il Dice/L'il Ze's are either at night or in darkness, and darkness has connotations of death, despair, evil and a sense of cunning, especially in L'il Ze's case. The only murder that isn't in darkness or at night is when L'il Dice murders Goose in broad daylight.