Almost Too Much to Watch

Rating: 9/10 (24 November 2009)

One must step back from an absolute sense of repugnance at the violence and look at what the filmmaker has done in this movie. Once you tune yourself into the lives of this cast of characters and their ongoing effort to stay alive and maintain dominance, you can reflect on the amazing cinematography and overall effect of the film. There is an ebb and floe that we watch, almost a dance in the slums of Rio. There is so much poverty that factions have grown up and the people are continually victimized by them as are there individual members. The police are perpetually on the take, so a military state is eventually set up. The main character is a participant early on and then an observer. His photographic skills are his ticket out and his ticket in. There is death and destruction, drugs and murder around every corner. Perhaps the scariest thing are a group of young boys called the Runts who are making a seamless transition into the horrors of the place, keeping things going for yet another generation. I think the most dominant theme of the whole thing has to do with the indifference toward death. Even those who are friends early on will kill their friends because a drug lord says so. It's an unforgettable film.