The scene is almost unbearable to watch. A gang corners two cowering children in the alley of a favela. The criminals want to initiate a teenager into their syndicate by having him shoot the kids. They give the children a choice: do they want to take a bullet in the hand or in the foot?

This moment from Fernando Meirelles’ City of God is not what the uninitiated expect from Brazilian cinema. Many assume that movies from the World Cup host nation will take the form of exotic fantasy: colourful escapism about sexy people in a sun-drenched tropical paradise. That type of film does exist – it gave the world Carmen Miranda – but the arc of Brazil’s movie history always has bent much more toward the solemn. Cinema has been the battleground where the struggle for Brazilian national identity has most frequently been fought – and Brazil’s filmmakers have treated that battle with the utmost seriousness. As director and political agitator Glauber Rocha would put it in his landmark essay The Aesthetics of Hunger (1964), Brazilian filmmakers have often strived to contribute to “…an evolving complex of films that will ultimately make the public aware of its own misery”.