about the chickens

According to Wikipedia, the tagline for this move translates to "if you run, the beast catches; if you stay, the beast eats". Also, in the first scene, the narrator voice of Rocket says: "A picture could change my life, but... in the City of God, if you run away, they get you... and if you stay, they get you, too."

This quote immediately follows the opening where there are two chickens shown: one stands there passively and then gets grabbed and butchered. The other tries to run away, but is chased by a gang and eventually caught in the crossfire of the final shootout.

Given the tagline and opening quote, the chickens are clearly symbolic of a theme of the movie. Bené tries to escape the favela, but is caught in the crossfire between Blacky and Li'l Zé. Meanwhile, the Portuguese name for Knockout Ned is Mane Galinho which translates roughly to "Chicken Manny" who is just trying to go about his business passively (he doesn't have a gun and doesn't participate in the gangs), but he still gets sucked into the violence and eventually killed.

Rocket, on the other hand, doesn't try to escape the favela but also tries to avoid the gang violence. Thus he's a bit more like Ned than Bené, and could potentially get "eaten" -- yet in the end, it is left unclear whether his photography is going to allow him to eventually find an elusive "third way": staying in the CIty of God but being active enough to avoid being "eaten".

Anyway, I liked these aspects of symbolism very much in the movie. However, I didn't see what happened to the chicken in the chaos at the end. I'd be curious to know if it's fate shown in any of the closing battle scenes. (By the time it occurred to me to look for this, I no longer had the rental to rewatch the scenes.) Does anyone know?