Think your life is bad?

~Movie review: City of God (2002)

Once in a while, a movie comes along that makes a viewer realize just how good his or her life is. "City of God," a highly acclaimed Brazilian film that chronicles the lives of several people living in Rio De Janeiro's slums, is such a movie.

Director Fernando Meirelles, who was nominated for a Best Director Oscar for his work (a rarity considering "City of God" isn't an American film), crafts an unflinching, visually stunning story full of sex, drugs and brutal violence that some people call normal life.

What's haunting about the film is it captures the scariness of the slums - the dangers of roaming the streets alone, the violence that young children are exposed to and the forcing of people to choose sides in a gang war.

Elevating this above the level of an exploitation flick are the well-written and deep characters and believable acting. The technical aspects also carry much weight. The film contains amazing editing and cinematography, as it covers several decades in the lives of the slum inhabitants.

The film focuses on two characters, Rocket and Li'l Zé. We watch as these two boys go in two completely different life directions. Rocket, who wants a way out of the slum life, decides to freelance as a photographer because he can go where most professional photographers cannot. Li'l Zé, on the other hand, goes on to be a cold-blooded murderer and the head of a slum gang.

As we see these characters age and progress into moral people or monsters, the film makes statements about the horrors of these people's lives. When the credits roll, you'll be mesmerized by the film's sheer power as art and a statement of moral ambiguity. We're stuck asking ourselves, "If I grew up in a place where children killed other children for fun, would I be a monster too?"