Madame Satã

Shot almost entirely on location with a hand-held camera, director Karim Ainouz's film draws you in close. The charisma and intensity of Lazaro Ramos as Joao holds you there.

Whether or not Ainouz's stylish directorial debut gets to the "real" Madame Satã is beside the point, but as a celebration of a figure who fashioned his own identity from pieces of pop culture and street poetry, from song and fashion and fury, it's memorable.

While it's a little shapeless and dramatically overwrought, the film remains entertaining thanks to its fascinating subject, sharp visuals and fiercely proud central performance.

Truly strange, and often captivating.

The result leaves the movie feeling like a one-note take on a complex subject.

The movie covers only the early years of his (Joao Francisco dos Santos) rise to fame and apparently enduring legend, but the camera never pulls back to provide a social or historical context.

Contains much abuse and brutality, an annoying celebratory air of pimp-chic and enough explicit gay sex scenes to qualify as (very tepid) soft-core porn.