Excellent

Rating: Null/10 (9 February 2004)

Sometimes popular culture quotes work as well as Shakespeare. I'm Not Down, by The Clash, has the following lines:
"So you rock around and think that you're the toughest in the world, the whole wide world. But you're streets away from where it gets the roughest. You ain't been there."
After viewing Cidade de Deus you may still not have been there, but you start to get an idea of how little you would want to.
Exceptional directing and the art direction/cinematography was perfect. The scenes in the 1970's, in particular, were stunning.