CITY OF GOD

Highly recommended, as a field trip to a place you'd never want to be.

This is a Brazilian film released in 2002, directed by Fernando Meirelles. It's an episodic view of life in a Rio slum -- a place where everyone is poor, the police have only theoretical authority, the economy is based on drugs and prepubescent boys get to have real life shoot-outs. Think GANGS OF NEW YORK, with a Latin beat.

The stories of Cidade de Deus are told by Rocket, who's found a way out and become a press photographer. His chatty, self deprecating narration tells us how things came to be the way they are now, and he presents a Runyaneske bunch of characters which includes the Tender Trio, Benny & Li'l Dice and Knockout Ned.

The background narrative is consistently horrifying, but the film is not. It just watches, closely. Every year the gangs get younger, and by the end of the piece, they've evolved into "the Runts," feral children with sidearms and an attitude.

You should see this one.

It also gets high marks for technique. The first thing we see (and hear) is a knife drawn over a stone. Chickens are being slaughtered for a cookout by Li'l Dice's gang. One chicken escapes and runs down the alley. The gang pursues, taking potshots at it along the way. They chase the chicken into an avenue where Rocket and a friend are walking toward them. The gang yells "Catch that chicken!" Rocket crouches to grab it, and behind him, police cars pull up to block the end of the street. The gang draws its weapons, the cops draw theirs, with Rocket and the chicken frozen between them.

And so the movie begins.