TEXTO

BOYS SOLDIERING IN AN ARMY OF CRIME

 

1    In ''City of God'', Fernando Meirelles's scorching anecdotal history of violence in the slums of Rio de Janeiro,
2    a fretful boy with the cute nickname Steak & Fries (Darlan Cunha), begs for a gun that would certify his
3    membership in one of two rival gangs. ''I smoke, I snort, I've killed and robbed,'' he pleads none too
4    convincingly. ''I'm a man.''

5    The movie traces the neighborhood's decline over a decade and a half, from a sun-baked shantytown of
6    earth-colored bungalows where the children while away the days in soccer games and petty thievery into a
7    shadowy slum teeming with armed adolescent warriors.

8    ''City of God'' is one of the most powerful in a recent spate of movies that remind us that the civilized society
9    we take for granted is actually a luxury. Although the police pop up now and again in Cidade de Deus, law
10  and order are as scarce on these mean streets (just minutes away from one of the world's most glorious
11  beaches) as they are in the slums of 1860's Manhattan depicted in Martin Scorsese's ''Gangs of New York.''

12  ''City of God,'' which has already created a sensation in Brazil, was adapted from a best-selling novel by
13  Paulo Lins, who grew up in Cidade de Deus. Its narrator, Rocket (Alexandre Rodrigues), is a young
14  photographer from the same neighborhood whose loose-jointed yarns follow the fates of a number of his
15  childhood acquaintances. What saves Rocket from being consumed by the thug life around him is his
16  passion for photography, along with his own comic ineptitude at crime.

17  If its panoramic scenes of street fighting recall ''Gangs of New York,'' the tone and structure of ''City of God''
18  are closer to Mr. Scorsese's ''Goodfellas,'' with which it shares the same attitude of brash nonchalance and
19  fondness for tall-sounding tales.

 

HOLDEN, Stephen. Disponível em: <http://movies2.nytimes.com/mem/movies/review.html?title1>
Acesso em: 14/09/2005.

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