Neighboring Sounds

A film that takes place in one street in Brazil. A street of middle-class apartment blocks in Recife. Everyone knows everyone and nobody talks. The doors are locked, the balconies barred, and the dogs bark at night. A private security crew arrives. The men offer to patrol at night for a monthly fee. Most of the residents agree. What the film is interested in is sound. Air conditioning, the lift, a washing machine, a dog somewhere in the distance, footsteps upstairs. The narrative builds its tension not from event but from that continuous background. There is a history under the street. All the property here belongs to one family and their wealth comes from the old sugar plantations. The old man still goes back to that land. The narrative runs three lines together and builds no large event. But the tension rises to the end. Kleber Mendonça Filho directed; his first feature. Irandhir Santos, Maeve Jinkings and Gustavo Jahn are in the cast. A strong example for anyone who likes Latin American cinema and narratives built on class. For a viewer expecting incident, the film goes nowhere for a long time and does it on purpose.