Cidade de Deus

An IMDb Top 250 movie

Apparently, the following is a joke in Brazil: God calls a congregation of His angels during the days of Creation. 'You'll never believe what I've come up with now', He says. 'It's just an astounding country. It's got a jungle, exotic birds, pristine beaches, natural beauty everywhere. It's My best work yet, and I'm going to call it Brazil.' 'But Lord,' asks one of the angels, 'if this place is so beautiful, won't it be too much of a competition for Heaven?' God smiles benevolently and says, 'I didn't tell you what kind of people I'm going to put in there.'
This Brazilian movie about the Rio de Janeiro ganglands scores surprisingly high in the IMDb Top 250, especially for a non-US film. Hailed as the Latin American GoodFellas, City of God, as its international title goes, makes the thugs from Scorsese's universe look like weak-hearted mama's boys.
Murder is not only a trivial and fairly forgivable offence in the City of God, a suburb where desperate officials have migrated all the scum of the metropolis, it is also committed by small children. And although crime here is gritty rather than glamorous, there is still a strange beauty in the cityscape, the characters and the way the movie is shot. Definitely worth a look.