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I'll tell you why so serious

Good movie but grossly overrated

Excellent adaptation.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

What is the goal of this film? From a very catholic world, a catholic hagiography. But there are so many shinny lights along the way, the writer keeps forgetting the goal. Is it about the saintly doctor? Is is about society? Is is about the misery of poverty? Is it about the prison system? Is it about power? The stories are too many and too undeveloped, only a long string of summer time snapshots. The only thing liking all this mess together is the rigid dogma of the producers who at the same time want to do charity and stone the sinners.Contact me with Questions, Comments or Suggestions ryitfork @ bitmail.ch

There are plenty of flaws – the doctor at the center of this prison story stays a grinning Buddha- like cipher, some of the prisoners feel like tattered clichés or soap opera characters. Yet, in the end, the total effect is amazingly powerful. By coming to see these men as real human beings with families and stories, before watching the insane storming of the prison by riot troops who killed 111 of them, the film has a real visceral power. Manipulative, one-sided, hokey at moments and some performances better than others, but ultimately that rare piece of agit-prop filmmaking that really works to make you see things in a different light.

Carandiru is a true hymn of humanity in all of us. What let the Brazilian riot squad shoot down over a hundred inmates was that following both prejudice and the professional drilling they had been subjected to, they regarded the rioters of 1992 as nothing but worthless scum. Bebenco does not defend his characters. Based on the eyewitness account of the prison physician, he presents us with assassins, murderers, robbers and drug-dealers who do not even claim they do not deserve their sentences (although many were kept in prison without convictions). What made them human was their continuous contact with the world outside. The visitation day scene is a memorable tribute to life in a truly Christian sense - everyone deserves to live and to hope not because of his own qualities or deeds, but because of the love others share for him. The character of the serial killer Dagger was essential to this purpose. His solitude in the midst of the modest pleasures of everybody else visited by his close ones was the first sign of the overcoming guilt which eventually took him to the preacher. Let this review not be understood as if the movie pursues to proselytize the viewers; I hope not to be too cynical to say that its prime purpose is to rejoice - to rejoice with the great diversity of human characters to whom Dr Varella and H. Bebenco paid their tribute.

Firstly to the people who say this movie is boring (yeah it's long but gripping every step of the way) or like City of God (they were both shot in Brazil - similarity ends) I disagree with you.Carandiru is the name of the Prison in Sao Paulo. Overcrowded by 2500 inmates life is tough not to mention cramped. Told from the point of view of the Prison doctor Carandiru chronicles the life inside with brief incites into the lives of individual prisoners.Disaster occurs when 111 inmates are shot in a bloodbath following a riot. The killers are the Riot Squad, sent in to quell the disruption.The story is one sided as it tells it only from the Doctor's version of events (mainly aided by the Prisoners he dealt with). Don't take it as fact, it's a film after all. But do take it as a harsh tale of the way inmates in Carandiru felt their life in their home was destroyed on that day.I doubt any film can come close to this. It benefits hugely from it's lack of stars. Many characters are portrayed and all contribute to the film equally. I highly recommend Carandiru to any potential viewer. It has it all comedy, realism, touching humanity, action, etc... you name it there is an element of it Carandiru.Simply marvelous.