Product Description

As Seen on the SUNDANCE CHANNEL

From the team behind the Academy Award®-nominated feature CITY OF GOD, including directors Fernando Meirelles (THE CONSTANT GARDNER) and Kátia Lund comes the hit Brazilian television series CITY OF MEN, a comedy/drama about two teenage boys growing up in a dangerous Rio de Janeiro slum starring Darlan Cunha and Douglas Silva, featured in the motion picture that inspired this series.

The CITY is a shantytown located in one of the many mountains of Rio de Janeiro. The MEN are two 13-year-old kids, Laranjinha and Acerola. This series brilliantly mixes humor and reality to explore life in the "favelas" and in particular the indomitable spirit of two best friends growing up in one of most volatile communities in the world.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #38669 in DVD
• Brand: Universal Studios
• Released on: 2006-09-26
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Box set, Color, DVD, Full Screen, Subtitled, NTSC
• Original language: Portuguese
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 3
• Dimensions: .60 pounds
• Running time: 570 minutes

Amazon.com
Brazilian TV series City of Men is a dazzling, propulsive, and fiery exploration of life in a chaotic Rio de Janeiro slum, seen through the eyes of Acerola (Douglas Silva) and Laranjinha (Darlan Cunha). These two boys prove to be amazingly charming tour guides to a world by turns terrifying and exhilarating. Using the jam-packed storytelling that made the movie City of God such a revelation, the first episode alone is a marvel, merging the history of Napoleon with a cutting analysis of drug lords and class structure in the poverty-ridden neighborhood. The other three episodes of the first series carry on this riveting approach, mingling social observation with rich, compelling characters. From the second series on, the show becomes less overtly political and more about Acerola and Laranjinha's passage from youth to adulthood (embracing, with humor and pathos, the adolescent boys' obsession with sex)--though every episode has some sly or startling observation about race, wealth, and gender. Each series is filmed a year after the previous one, so the boys literally grow before our eyes; it's impossible to watch and not feel deeply involved as Acerola woos a girl named Cristiane and ends up a way-too-young father, or as an innocent prank escalates into a life-and-death struggle. Some episodes teeter on the brink of silliness--one of the last ones has the boys engaging in absurd cross-dressing--but the briskness of the writing and the charisma of Silva and Cunha carry the show through. Add to this the dynamic musical score of Brazilian pop and samba, and you have essential viewing. World music has already found popularity in the U.S.; welcome to a masterpiece of world television. --Bret Fetzer

The Los Angeles Daily News
"4 Stars! CITY OF MEN boasts the same, lean, muscular storytelling of CITY OF GOD. EXHILARATING TO WATCH."

The Austin Chronicle
"Watch This!"

Customer Reviews

A heart-warming show injected with tons of humor and personality
Cidade dos Homens is one of those shows that breaks your heart and at the same makes you feel like there's hope for some of the world's poorest people, os favelados in Brasil.

Cidade dos Homens (City Of Men) follows the two young men, Acerola and Laranjinha, as they live, survive and hustle in the favela. It's obvious that the boys are mischievous, and they get into many a scrape, but it's also clear that the boys have good hearts.

The cast of characters and life lessons taught and shown in the series bring a face to the suffering of the people in the favelas. When Espeto's girlfriend waits in line all night just to get her boyfriend a job sweeping streets, only to have him be turned down because he cannot read and write (as Espeto astutely points out: Why do I need to know how to read and write to sweep the streets?), we can see the chokehold bureaucracy and incompetence have on Brazilians.

Despite all these obstacles and roadblocks, Cidade dos Homens(City of Men) is full of smiles, joyful moments and lots of great music. It's a coming of age story, albeit one with a slightly different perspective.

Amazingly visceral and engaging.
The acting is engaging, the episodes are well-written and beautifully filmed and the character development is second to no other television show or film I've ever seen. Throughout the series there is an unprecedented blend of drama and humor that is sublimely touching.

After a few episodes you will find yourself thinking about the characters as if you know them personally, especially the incredibly multi-faceted main characters Acerola and Laranjinha. You will find yourself feeling a complete spectrum of emotion as you follow the two boys through agonizing challenges and life lessons that are often used as a vehicle of social commentary about Brazilian political and social structures. This commentary is delivered in a variety of original ways including interviews with real people cut right into the middle of story-lines and unscripted interactions between the show's actors filmed in a documentary style.

In addition to the fantastic character development there is equally impressive development of setting. There were times I felt I was running right along with the characters through the rough, disorienting, labyrinth of a neighborhood they live in. The distance between you on your couch and the environment on your television screen will never feel smaller than it does while watching City of Men.

All of that said, there are times where the seemingly insurmountable challenges Acerola and Laranjinha face feel formulaic and there are a couple episodes that are noticeably less enjoyable than the others because of inexplicable plot developments and inconsistencies, to the point where at times I was wondering if I had missed episodes. (One episode ends with one of the boys stating, "We never saw him again...", about a character who appears in the very next episode.) Also, if you find yourself as immersed in Acerola and Laranjinha's lives as I did, the last episode will feel like a bit of a slap in the face.

All in all this series is well worth the 13 odd hours you will spend watching. At it's worst it is wildly entertaining and evocative and at it's best it transcends it's medium to directly enhance your core understanding of society, privilege, oppression (mainly of poor people by government establishments), and the fundamental experiences, (love, friendship, work, pride, hardship, fear, the search for identity and meaning) that we all share.

one of the best shows ever!
i dont want to repeat anything that's already been said but i just love this series so much i had to come on here and give it 5 stars. i'd give 100 if i could!

i watched the entire series over 3 days time and i would reccommend it to anyone of any age. it's just so entertaining, making you laugh, cry, learn and think. the actors who play acerola and laranjinha are extremely talented (and there are a lot of hot guys in the series - tons of eye-candy.)

the subtitles are great, the brazilian-portugese is an awesome language, so nice to listen to and you will probably inadvertently learn some while watching this!