An aside...

When you read some people's journals (no, not yours, if you are on my friends list) don't you just want to grab 'em by the throat and say "For gawd's sake, cheer up and stop whining !" ?

Film Review: City of God.

The film tracks the young life of Rocket, growing up in the City of God, a custom built slum in Rio, from the early sixties to the present. In so doing it tracks the stories of those with whom he comes into contact - for the most part the young gang members who grow up to control the lucrative drugs trade within the slum.

This is a hard film to review; it is, I think, the only film I have seen that left me open-mouthed with horrified admiration from about...oh...the first ten seconds of the movie right the way through to the end, two hours later. It is an astonishing piece of work - moving, exciting, funny and - inevitably - shockingly violent (although not gratuitously, nor in an overly explicit way).

When the credits finally rolled, I wanted to sit in the cinema and just let the emotional adrenalin slowly settle back to normal levels. 24 hours later I still find myself thinking about it and desperate to see it again.... So, yeah - I liked it. A lot. Really.

The achievement is all the greater when you realise thatthe actors are not actors at all - they were locals, taken from the favella and taught on set how to be part of the film. The dialogue was not written - about 70% of it was improvised by the "actors" as they built the various scenes themselves inf ront of the camera - following the guidance of the director on where the scene was heading...

Maybe it is this that gives the film its raw power and edge... it's not like watching a film - it's like watching real people caught in a world where a totally different moral code applies (to most of them) - where telling someone to "shut up" and shooting them are largely interchangeable. Where crime is just life.

It is an extraordinary film... if you get the opportunity, go and see it...