In City of Joy, the camera is constantly craning back over crowded streets, a grand movement which simply underlines the lack of connection between the large and small-scale elements of the project.

The unpleasant surprise is Ennio Morricone's score, his worst ever. The final chorus sounds like 10,000 Pekinese puppies stuck in a cave.

City of Joy seems a little too "written," too conformed to the rituals of Hollywood screenplays. There's so much interesting stuff in the movie we are prepared to forgive that.

This tale of self-discovery works more fascinatingly as a quasi-documentary/travelogue than as a human drama.