Being not only a Brazilian but a northeaster as well, I have to tell you that it is strange to see that so many people around the world actually enjoyed this film. I though to be very concerned to those who would understand the language, the situations and the causes of all of this. Well, seems that I was wrong and the themes exposed here are bound to be more universal than I expected.Every moment of Kleber Mendonças'Neighboring Sounds could be opened for discussion as subject of semiotics. The symbolism is so present and so meaningful that I was overwhelmed.A truly masterpiece, that have to be seen with very opened eyes.

"How can you measure progress if you don't know what it costs and who has paid for it? How can the 'market' put a price on things - food, clothes, electricity, running water - when it doesn't take into account the 'real' cost of production?" ― Arundhati Roy Directed by Kleber Mendonca Filho, "Neighbouring Sounds" paints a portrait of the director's own hometown. Part Robert Altman ("Kansas City"), part John Sayles ("Sunshine State"), the film is set in the streets of Setubal, a town in one of Brazil's largest cities.Mendonca's title may allude to the sounds of urban life, but what he's primarily interested in is the sound of locking doors. Throughout the film, we're constantly reminded of the threat of crime, the fear of intrusion and the possibility of violence. This violence is the film's chief interest, though Mendonca goes to lengths to disguise this fact. Instead, we watch as a series of characters navigate a concrete labyrinth adorned with protective bars, metal grilles, security alarms and cordoned off spaces. We watch as immigrants are hired to tutor children, favela kids are bullied, gangs offer to protect buildings, upper-class women marinade in ennui and various characters reveal insecurities, paranoias and their desire to climb the social ladder. Paradoxically, everyone knows their place, each character deferential to invisibly drawn social lines.It's only during the film's climax in which the ten black-and-white photos which open the picture (of fenced off countrysides, happy workers, angry villagers, palatial villas etc) are explained. Here Francisco Oliveira, a patriarch who got rich selling sugar and who now owns most buildings in Setubal, is implicated in the town's bloody history, a history which leaks into the present and mutates into modern forms of literal and psychic violence. Class divisions and lines of demarcation forged Oliveira's wealth, gave birth to Setubal, and now, in the present, separate neighbour from neighbour, brother from brother. Setubal may seem peaceful, but the ramifications of land-grabs, slavery and class warfare are everywhere.Unsurpsiingly, Mendonca is also preoccupied with issues of race. The condos and upper-middle class apartments of Setubal are populated by pale, white skinned men and women, whilst the housemaids, valets, janitors and street urchins are all various shades of brown or black. The classes put on happy faces, but key each other's cars and engage in other covert or overt forms of disrespect. Of course capitalism has always pitted the middle against the lower class, the lower against the middle and both against foreigners. But in Setubal, iron bars seem to keep everyone firmly apart. They're all jailed, eyeballing one another through cages. Only rarely does contact and so conflict arise. And when it does, blood spills.8/10 – Worth one viewing. See "Cutter's Way".

In his daring debut, Kleber Mendonça Filho did not just made a film about Brazilian middle class suburbia but placed the audience right on that street.We take part on the daily lives of the residents, their aspirations and challenges as their characters are opened wide for us to study, judge and ponder upon.These seemingly ordinary lives that these people lead, experience some sort of change when a street security team is hired to protect them and whilst watching this the question regarding where this is going did pop into my head, it is an area where the new director showed some mastery by not allowing the putting together of the pieces of the puzzle to affect the narrative as we were led to its dramatic conclusion.An unusual but stimulating experience.

The Brazilian film O som ao redor was shown in the U.S. with the title Neighbouring Sounds (2012). It was directed by Kleber Mendonça Filho.The setting for this movie is modern day Recife, Brazil. (Recife is a seaport at the easternmost tip of Brazil.) A better title for the movie would be "Neighborhood Sounds," because the sounds in this affluent neighborhood are intimately involved with the plot.This is not a violent film. It doesn't take place in a favela, but rather in an affluent neighborhood. Still, violence is always lurking in the neighborhood, just off-screen. Every home has a security system, but any car parked in the street is fair game for thieves.A security firm comes to the neighborhood, and most of the residents ante up the money to purchase their services. The security men appear honest and capable enough, and hiring them probably made sense. They become part of the neighborhood scene.Meanwhile, life goes on around them. There's a dog that howls and barks all night, a woman who uses her vacuum to suck marijuana smoke out of her apartment, a pair of lovers, a deliveryman who delivers water and other substances on demand, and the locally influential man who walks past the "caution--sharks" sign to go swimming.Matters come together in the end in a way I would never have predicted. I'm not going to spoil the ending by even hinting at it. However, it made sense once I thought about it.We saw the film at the newly refurbished, excellent Dryden Theatre at Eastman House in Rochester, NY. However, it will work very well on DVD.