Has everything- philosophical depth, suspense, film-craft. It's a 10.

Rating: 10/10 (2 February 2007)

A whole lot of people die in this film, and they are not the weightless, clean, entertainment deaths of your average adventure, action or crime flick.
They are real-world deaths. Pointless, tragic, bloody and disgusting. Meaningless beyond being a reflection of the constraints and conditions we humans create in some places, in interaction with the wide span of human personalities that must live in them. To put that better- deaths that occur, just like in the real world, because some few people see killing as the answer to business competition or emotional dissent and the wealthier society around them finds it unnecessary or even undesirable to stop the killing since it is happening to "worthless" people in the slums, or as in this case, the specially constructed residential area for the dislocated poor.
But the movie is fantastic. Those dead people, before they die, they live vibrant, meaningful, realistically textured lives. The film is gorgeously shot. The script and story structure are the work of skilled craftsmen and left nothing to desire for me. It seems to me to be a brilliant study of humanity and society, and every bit as hopeful as hopeless. That pulls it up into great art.
This is one of the very few movies in the world that I look forward to watching again for the sheer pleasure of watching it unfold, even though I know what it's about, where it's going and where it will arrive.
A classic.