In my opinion, this film tries to depict jail life, from the point of view of the inmates, their families, the guards and a doctor (Luiz Carlos Vasconcelos) who worked at Carandiru as part of an AIDS' prevention programme. The doctor says that at Carandiru "I heard stories, made real friends, learned medicine and penetrated a few of the mysteries of life in jail which would have remained inaccessible were I not a doctor". As spectators of this film, we are also allowed to learn what he learns, and to listen to the different stories the inmates tell him, specially regarding how they ended up in jail. Some reflections of the inmates were also quite interesting, for example when one of them says that the best thing about jail is to get out of it.

The film also depicts the Carandiru massacre, at least one version of it. The scenes that show the repression are remarkably brutal, and there is a point when blood seems to be everywhere. How much of what this film tells is true, and how much is fiction is something we will never know. Nonetheless, this version of the events had enough weight to convince the director...

Did I like this movie?. Yes, but I don't think this is the kind of movie everybody will want to watch, and it isn't a film I would purchase. "Carandiru" has many violent scenes, explicit language and a dark atmosphere that pervades almost every moment in the movie. Despite that, I don't regret watching it, because it is a well-made movie on a subject I knew nothing about. On the whole, recommended... "Carandiru" isn't the kind of movie I would like to watch many times, but I think you will miss something if you don't watch it at least once.

Belen Alcat

Typically neorealism
Review date: 2005-02-25 Rating: 8 out of 10

Typical but certainly not in a bad way, undeniably a watchable and entertaining set in documentary style piece of film making much in the way of City of God. I have become very fond of neo realism which started out in Italy but many Brazillian films have now taken on this style of film. Basically Carandiru is about a jail full of transvestites and convicts yet still so loveable and convincing. I recommend this film to any film watcher who appreciates the true values of a realistic film, someone like myself perhaps.

Strange hybrid
Review date: 2004-12-22 Rating: 6 out of 10

Erm... where to start? I think this film would have been better as a documentary. The stories told by the characters are fascinating and I wanted to know more but they were shrouded in a mist of film making that didn't fit the subject matter. Think of the historical films you've seen where evryone wears nice clean clothes and that's the problem here. We are supposed to be convinced that this is a South American jail, but apart from a little trouble at the beginning and the rather nasty ending there is very little sense of what life is really like for the inmates. We are told that the prisoners are being tested for AIDS but there is little sense of the impact that the disease has in the jail. Most of the prisoners smoke crack but there is no real sense of the effect of the drug other than a murder which, because of the incongrousness of the storyline doesn't fit comfortably with the overall plot. Where is the pain, the horror of sharing an already cramped cell, the sharing of needles, scared prisoners. I got no sense of the real horror of these jails, only an idealised view full of happy crack heads who surf on their beds and drag queens who end up marrying their doctors. Add to this, the horrific (true) ending and you are left with a strange mixture. I still wasn't clear why the police stormed the building when the prisoners had relinquished their weapons but I suppose that was part of the controversy at the time...
Overall its a bit long. I felt myself growing restless by the time the riot started, and I was unsatisfied by the stories I was told which all sounded a bit Boccaccian in a bawdy kind of way. Not a bad film, but nowhere near as good as it could have been.

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