Notorious around the world as the site of a 1992 massacre that left 111 prisoners dead, Sao Paulo's House of Detention — known in Brazil as Carandiru — was demolished two years ago to make way for a state-of-the-art recreation center. Few tears were shed.

"Carandiru" is a sprawling, hot- tempered eulogy to the prison and its inmates, filmed on location by writer- director Hector Babenco (“Kiss of the Spider Woman”) shortly before the cellblocks were reduced to rubble.

Based on the memoirs of a physician who worked at the prison for more than a decade, it unforgettably depicts Caradiru's unique self-regulating culture (in this case, the inmates truly did run the asylum) and the many riveting tales of abuse, decay and domination that transpired behind its walls.

The first half of “Carandiru” is anecdotal, chiefly a series of vignettes in which the nameless physician (Luiz Carlos Vasconcelos) politely listens to the inmates’ sob stories. One cell boss named Highness (Ailton Graca) recalls how he took an arson rap for his enraged wife after she set his bed on fire — with him and his mistress still in it. A shy Carandiru newcomer (Caio Blat) tells the story of how he gunned down two men who attempted to rape his sister. And so on. In between, the doctor tries to quell the prison's growing AIDS epidemic and watches, bemused, as romance blossoms between a male nurse and a pre-operative transsexual named Lady Di (Rodrigo Santoro).

Babenco scored an extraordinary coup in winning permission to film at the prison. Every shot is eerily authentic. The actors are unnervingly natural. Desperation and sickness seem to ooze from the walls like brow sweat. It's like watching a Portuguese- language edition of HBO's “Oz,” remastered with the rich textures and feverish visual sensibilities of Fernando Meirelles’ “City of God.”

Eventually, Babenco leaves behind the episodic, somewhat pulpy tenor of the first part of the movie and starts to lay groundwork for the riot sequence. The transition is jarring and overlong (the movie clocks in at over two hours), but Babenco snaps us back to attention with a jackhammer indictment of police abuse that's indelible in its unmitigated cruelty.

As a coda, the director tacks on footage of Carandiru being blasted to its foundations, knowing full well that the more-lasting explosion took place a decade earlier.
GRADE B+

‘Carandiru’
Starring: Luiz Carlos Vasconcelos, Milton Goncalves, Ailton Graca
Playing: Opens Friday at Harkins Camelview in Scottsdale
Rating: R (strong violence/carnage, profanity, sexuality, drug use)
Running time: 128 minutes