GANGS OF RIO DE JANEIRO

In "City of God," Fernando Meirelles's scorching anecdotal history of
violence in the slums of Rio de Janeiro, a fretful boy with the cute
nickname Steak & Fries (Darlan Cunha), begs for a gun that would certify
his membership in one of two rival gangs. "I smoke, I snort, I've killed
and robbed," he pleads none too convincingly. "I'm a man."

Handed a weapon he doesn't know how to use, this eager new recruit, whose
voice has barely begun to change, rushes to join one of the clashing posses
of armed children swarming through Cidade de Deus (City of God). A
sprawling housing project built in the 1960's on the outskirts of Rio and
left to fester in a poisonous stew of poverty, drugs and crime, it has
degenerated into a war zone so dangerous that visitors from outside risk
being shot to death.

The movie traces the neighborhood's decline over a decade and a half, from
a sun-baked shantytown of earth-colored bungalows where the children while
away the days in soccer games and petty thievery into a shadowy slum
teeming with armed adolescent warriors.

The portrait of a boy soldier enlisting in a volunteer criminal army with
an astronomical mortality rate is one of many profoundly unsettling images
that jostle through the film. Another is a scene in which a gangster
coerces a frightened boy, who has been poaching on his territory, to choose
between being shot in the hand or the foot.

As the victim, who chooses the foot, hobbles away in agony, he is ordered
not to limp.

"City of God," which opens today in New York and Los Angeles, is the latest
and one of the most powerful in a recent spate of movies that remind us
that the civilized society we take for granted is actually a luxury.
Although the police pop up now and again in Cidade de Deus, law and order
are as scarce on these mean streets (just minutes away from one of the
world's most glorious beaches) as they are in the slums of 1860's Manhattan
depicted in Martin Scorsese's "Gangs of New York."

Anyone who once dressed up as a cowboy and played shoot-'em-up games with
the neighborhood kids will wince with sadness as these packs of children
cavort through the streets, flourishing real guns as though they were toys
and chattering excitedly about murder.

"City of God," which has already created a sensation in Brazil, was adapted
from a best-selling novel by Paulo Lins, who grew up in Cidade de Deus. Its
narrator, Rocket (Alexandre Rodrigues), is a young photographer from the
same neighborhood whose loose-jointed yarns follow the fates of a number of
his childhood acquaintances. What saves Rocket from being consumed by the
thug life around him is his passion for photography, along with his own
comic ineptitude at crime.

The movie is divided into three chapters, each bleaker and more appalling
than the one before; they parallel the intertwining destinies of Rocket and
one of his childhood playmates, Li'l Dice (Douglas Silva). After growing up
and changing his nickname to Li'l Ze (Leandro Firmino da Hora takes over
the role), he ascends into a trigger-happy drug dealer and local kingpin.

"City of God" can be grimly amusing, as in the opening scene, in which Li'l
Ze and his juvenile army amuse themselves by chasing a flustered chicken
down the street. That ridiculous image introduces a note of absurdist humor
that is carried forward by Rocket's dispassionately chatty storytelling.
From here the movie immediately flashes back to the 1960's and Rocket's
recollections of a clique of adolescent outlaws called the Tender Trio,
whose big-time criminal career begins with their robbery of a brothel.

As the story lurches ahead, the drugs become harder (cocaine supplants
marijuana) and the weaponry more deadly. The second chapter, set in the
1970's, focuses on Li'l Ze, now a grinning sociopath with an appetite for
murder, and his reign of terror. The only thing keeping his crazier
impulses in check is his lieutenant Benny (Phellipe Haagensen), a smart,
good-hearted gangster with a hippie sensibility who eventually decides to
abandon the criminal life. The farewell party Benny arranges for himself at
which the merriment turns tragically violent (to the strains of "Kung Fu
Fighting") is one of the film's most spectacular set pieces.

The final third, set in the early 1980's, finds Li'l Ze's empire threatened
by an even younger crew of pre-teenage gangsters called the Runts (some of
them only 9 and 10), who disregard his authority. It all builds to a
showdown between Li'l Ze and a rival band led by Knockout Ned (Seu Jorge),
a peaceable bus-fare collector who turns into avenging fury after Li'l Ze
rapes his girlfriend and shoots his brother.

Rocket, meanwhile, cinches his escape from the criminal life when his
sensational photo of Li'l Ze and his posse winds up on the front page of a
newspaper. Resigned to being killed for exposing the gangster, Rocket
instead finds himself hired by the publicity-hungry thug as a kind of court
photographer. Most of the movie's final bloodbath is observed through his
camera's lens.

If its panoramic scenes of street fighting recall "Gangs of New York," the
tone and structure of "City of God" are closer to Mr. Scorsese's
"Goodfellas," with which it shares the same attitude of brash nonchalance
and fondness for tall-sounding tales.

Underscored by samba music, much of the treachery and violence unfold in
what could be described only as a party atmosphere.

Because it was filmed with hand-held cameras on the streets of Rio (but not
in Cidade de Deus) with a cast that includes some 200 nonprofessional
actors, "City of God" conveys the authenticity of a cinema verite
scrapbook. Cesar Charlone's restless cinematography is a flashy potpourri
of effects that include slow and accelerated motion, the use of split
screens and a dramatically varied expressionistic palette.

As the movie's frenetic visual rhythms and mood swings synchronize with the
zany, adrenaline-fueled impulsiveness of its lost youth on the rampage, you
may find yourself getting lost in this teeming netherworld. To experience
this devastating movie is a little like attending a children's birthday
party that goes wildly out of control. You watch in helpless disbelief as
the apple-cheeked revelers turn into little devils gleefully smashing
everything in sight.

"City of God" is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult
guardian). It has scenes of violence and graphic sex talk.

CITY OF GOD

Directed by Fernando Meirelles; written (in Portuguese, with English
subtitles) by Braulio Mantovani, based on the novel by Paulo Lins; director
of photography, Cesar Charlone; edited by Daniel Rezende; music by Antonio
Pinto and Ed Cortes; art director, Tule Peake; produced by Andrea Barata
Ribeiro and Mauricio Andrade Ramos; released by Miramax Films. At the
Angelika Film Center, Mercer and Houston Streets, Greenwich Village.
Running time: 130 minutes. This film is rated R.

WITH: Seu Jorge (Knockout Ned), Alexandre Rodrigues (Rocket), Leandro
Firmino da Hora (Li'l Ze), Phellipe Haagensen (Benny), Douglas Silva (Li'l
Dice) and Darlan Cunha (Steak & Fries).