The thing about Rocinba is that it succeeds in being somewhat beautiful, even though it's a slum. How many slums can you say that about?
Parts of Rocinba remind me of Montreal's "Habitat (above)." Both make high density living seem appealing, at least from a distance.
Back to Rocinba: here Von Deisel (above) tries to elude the police by taking a shortcut through what may be the community's drainage. Do you see what I mean about the place being good looking? Sure, it's toxic and decrepit, but if you had to live in absolute squalor, you could do worse.
Imagine what it's like to climb these hills every day if you don't have a car. Come to think of it, it couldn't be that easy even if you do have a car. I think a lot of people have motorcycles.
In real life the place (above) is run by drug lords who provide some electricity and water in exchange for loyalty from the people who live here. Every once in a while the drug people hold big late-night block parties which attract the rowdiest people around. They fight with each other and lots of people end up getting killed.
It looks like some of the buildings (above) have been given a paint job. Rio is trying to clean up the slums in time for The Olympics and the world soccer championships.
In November there were pitched battles between the drug gangs and the cops.
The people who lived there, including some of the children, were so used to violence that they casually went about their business, oblivious to the machine gun fire and exploding grenades all around them.
What a city of contrasts! Beauty and ugliness side by side!
A YouTube video claims that there are 50,000 murders a year in Brazil! No wonder that country wins so many of the UFC martial arts championships!
Here (above) a couple runs along the rooftops, trying to evade the police.
They have no choice but to jump down onto a distant roof of corrugated tin fragments. What a view!
