`MADAME SATA' TRIUMPHS AS MOVING SOCIAL COMMENTARY.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

THE STORY OF ``Madame Sata'' is, apparently, some kind of mythologized favorite in the bohemian Rio de Janeiro slum of Lapa.

An angry gay black man from Brazil's northern sticks, Joao Francisco dos Santos, played here by charismatic newcomer Lazaro Ramos, had by the 1930s established himself as a formidable pimp, thief and kick-boxing street fighter in the crumbling urban distract.

This strongly acted, gorgeously shot feature covers that territory, as well as the beginnings of the twin lives dos Santos lived for 30-some years afterward: repeated prison stints (at least one of which was for murder), interspersed with triumphant performances as one of that famously polymorphous culture's most celebrated drag queens.

While that glam stuff doesn't manifest until the film's end, debuting writer-director Karim Ainouz is mainly concerned with the everyday details of dos Santos' existence before his rise to notoriety. Much of the action takes place in the peeling hovel he shares with Lauritia (Marcelia Cartaxo), a prostitute upon whose toddler daughter he dotes, and Taboo (Flavio Bauraqui), another gay man who is as sissified as dos Santos is smolderingly tough - and who the stronger personality regularly abuses.

Dos Santos' nasty treatment of his friend Taboo is of a piece with his whole approach to the world. Class, race, poverty, orientation and attitude all conspire to make dos Santos a multiple outcast, and his rage is just as often directed at those he loves as it is toward his enemies and targeted victims.

But when he finds his voice in flashy, if decidedly low-rent, cabaret performance, dos Santos discovers a whole new aspect of life beyond animal lust and survival instinct. Of course, that can't erase his destructive streak, but if you're looking for some uplift in a very downbeat, grungy tale, there it is.

For his first feature effort, Ainouz was aided immensely by executive producer Walter Salles, currently Brazil's top director (``Central Station,'' ``Behind the Sun'') and, incalculably, by Salles' world-class director of photography, Walter Carvalho. More than a master of noirish shading, Carvalho captures a mesmerizing poetry of textures, whether they be in a wrinkled shirt, a peeling wall or the skin qualities of writhing male bodies.

``Madame Sata'' (which was the stage name dos Santos eventually took, based on a decadent musical Cecil B. DeMille made during the early sound era, ``Madame Satan'') works well as character study, underworld social document, gay/ethnic/class pride statement, erotic wallow and even crime thriller. But it is, above all, a magnificent visual document that proves, both formally and thematically, that the right hands can turn the least promising of raw materials into something beautiful.

MADAME SATA - three and one half stars

(Not rated: violence, sex, nudity, language, drug use, children in jeopardy)

Starring: Lazaro Ramos, Marcelia Cartaxo, Flavio Bauraqui, Felipe Marques.

Director: Karim Ainouz.

Running time: 1 hr. 45 min.

Playing: Nuart, West L.A.; Town Center 6, Irvine.

In a nutshell: Based on a real-life character who kept reinventing himself to an astonishing degree, the film takes a lower-depths look at the early life of a black, gay, Brazilian outlaw who, between prison stints, was a prize-winning drag artist in the Rio slums.

Bob Strauss, [phone]

bob.strauss(at)dailynews.com

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Photo:

Lazaro Ramos portrays pimp/thief/kick-boxing street fighter Joao Francisco dos Santos in the engrossing ``Madame Sata.''