Fernando Meirelles and Katia Lund’s City of God (2002) has been compared to Goodfellas since both films deal with criminal organizations, but the crimes committed in the Brazilian film are much more chaotic, and in a way much more horrible. In fact, while Martin Scorsese’s crime masterpiece showed how the Italian-American mob handled crime like a business, City of God illustrates how crime in the impoverished favelas of the beautiful Rio de Janeiro is not “organized” so much as loosely controlled chaos. It is a scattering look at the underbelly of paradise, and leaves you shaken upon first viewing. Having lived in South America for quite a few years in the mid-90s, I had a rough idea of what favelas look like, but was lucky to have only seen them from afar. I never saw violence remotely resembling what is depicted in the film, but I have seen levels of poverty that make me grateful to live anywhere in Canada. If you think your city is bad because it’s too small or polluted, the...