If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

The short intro, with some black and white photos of Brasil's colonial times, is telling. Straight after, we go into a middle class suburb of Recife (I would have guessed Rio de Janeiro); children playing in little streets and outside places between lots of big apartment buildings. There are various casual portraits of some people who live here; a bored mother and housewife who is much bothered by a barking dog, her daughter and son who are learning Chinese, a rich young man who is newly dating a young woman who once lived in the area, a small group of men who are trying to sell their security services to the people of the suburb, a local thief (or is he is a student, or both?) and the father of the rich young man, who owns most of the property in the suburb.At first glance it looks like a broad portrayal of middle class life in Recife, but there are plenty of bigger and smaller details hinting at the state of the people, the street, the suburb, the city and the land, and its past and current issues. The film will give you some feeling impending doom here and there, but the actual thriller elements emerge rather late into the film, and at first only through the dreams and nightmares of some characters. There is no gore, hardly any on-screen violence, but the implied actions still speak for themselves - like neighbouring sounds that can't be ignored. It will make you think, without throwing it in your face. Very good and naturalistic acting, fine cinematography - it's all good.A big 8 out of 10.

I don't think this is really a movie; it seems more a very boring and stretched episode of a bad soap opera before the editing to fit a 50 minutes episode. Brazilian TV Globo makes much better episodes of its soap operas, every day, in only 50 minutes, than this pointless group of stories with no meaning at all and very bad acting that goes over and over by 2 and a half hours. The only exception is the brilliant actor Irandhir Santos but in a very small role.Some foreign people maybe have seen something interesting about watching the Brazilian life in a regular neighborhood, because they don't know Brazil, but in this case, it is like a mocumentary and it doesn't make it a good film even why almost anything happens in the film, there are better and more interesting neighborhoods to be shown.Some critics, obviously friends or friendly with the director, who is a critic too, pointed out some qualities that maybe were all in the intention or in the head of the director but for sure are not in the film. This way of reviewing movies is very common in Brazil, most of "intelectualoides" critics, like the director, prefer to judge the pseudo-ideas behind the movie besides what is really in the screen and how it affects the public. This happens because these people make movies in Brazil with Government money and they don't have the concern of making money with the public of their films, because they make the money in the production, receiving their money as screenwriter, director, producer, etc. This way they are able to do whatever they want with a complete despise by the public opinion and stay happy with the complements of their "intelectualoides" critics and friends in more than one hundred Film Festivals whose juries think like then. The consequence is that it has been a long time since Brazil doesn't receive a decent prize in a decent Festival, besides TROPA DE ELITE in Berlin, that was done by a director who wasn't a critic or "intelectualoide" and was concerned about the public and telling a good story, that is exactly what doesn't exist here. Unfortunately this movie was indicated by Brazil to represent the country in the foreign Oscar e guess what? It was a shame, not even in the eight final possible nominated it was. Very understandable by the way. This director many times showed his despise by the TV Network Globo and now I can understand why. He wanted to work there writing or directing soap operas and he wasn't able to get the job…by this film I can understand why.

Interesting. Strange. The editing. The framing. I like it but I'm not sure if I love it. It's quite unique and daring but at the same time it doesn't touch me deep. It has both mature and amateur touch that I don't trust the filmmaker. The use of sound, for example, seems too manipulative at times. The film has many suggestive elements conveying how the film is more than what it seems on the surface, but I'm not sure if they're just clever ploys for critics. I'm not really keen on the ending. Things come together too much. I rather see it ends with a more open-ended approach. However, it's worth seeing and it's likely to stay in your mind for sometime, which is a good thing.

The film reminded me of "The Class" (France 2008). Just change the school by a handful of houses in the same street. The relationships among the characters are unveiled as the story goes, there is nothing special about any of them, there is nothing special going on in theirs lives. It looks like a very casual portrait of any given month in Recife.People made a lot of fuss about the private security guys that show up, about the claustrophobic feeling, about the master/servant relation depicted all the time, but in fact, it is not big deal. It is no news. It is simply how life is down here.For a foreigner it may look strange, odd, annoying, maybe violent, but down here it is our daily life. That's how things are. In that sense the film is dull. Didn't bring us anything new, didn't show anything we are not used to see daily around us.