What a breath of fresh air. What a shot of adrenaline. At a time in movie culture when mobster movies had retreated into the stiff and artful stylisation of, say, Scorsese’s Gangs of New York, along came the groundbreaking Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles and a cast of non-professional actors from the favelas of Rio de Janeiro.
They unleashed this nonstop hyper-adrenalised masterwork that opens with a crazed chicken chase through the eponymous topsy-turvy neighbourhood and simply doesn’t stop running and rampaging until a 20-year span of crime, murder and tragedy has somehow unfolded before our completely addled senses.
It was nominated for four Oscars, provoked a flurry of concerned reactions from Brazilian politicians and inspired a four-season TV series, then a film version of that show. Subsequent “gritty” crime dramas A Prophet and Elite Squad are also deeply in its debt. Meirelles has never made a better movie. How could he?
★★★★★
18, 124min
Re-released in cinemas
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