Rio, 40 Degrees

Few movies will make you know more Rio de Janeiro than this one. There are many important characters and multiple parallel stories, from Cabuçu favela slum to Copacabana beach, Maracanã stadium and Sugarloaf tourist site. However, the main character is the town itself, with its contrasts, inequalities, violences, beauties, music and football. It is impressive that, more than half century afterwards, the film is not dated, and Rio de Janeiro has not changed so much eversince. Cinematography is beautiful as usual in Nelson Pereira dos Santos, who is a master of showing moving frames about deep feelings of poor peolle from Rio (I strongly recommend that you also wstch his wonderful Rio Zona Norte). The black children selling peanuts proved themselves to be excellent actors.