
Life in a middle-class neighborhood in present day Recife, Brazil, takes an unexpected turn after the arrival of an independent private security firm. The presence of these men brings a sense of safety and a good deal of anxiety to a culture which runs on fear. Meanwhile, Bia, married and mother of two, must find a way to deal with the constant barking and howling of her neighbor's dog. A slice of 'Braziliana', a reflection on history, violence and noise.... (Full plot summary below)
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Life in a middle-class neighborhood in present day Recife, Brazil, takes an unexpected turn after the arrival of an independent private security firm. The presence of these men brings a sense of safety and a good deal of anxiety to a culture which runs on fear. Meanwhile, Bia, married and mother of two, must find a way to deal with the constant barking and howling of her neighbor's dog. A slice of 'Braziliana', a reflection on history, violence and noise.
Leave your thoughts about Neighboring Sounds.
| Los Angeles TimesRobert Abele[Filho's] mastery of pacing, theme and stylistic eccentricity throughout Neighboring Sounds is so assured as to be breathtaking. Don't miss it. |
| The New York TimesA.O. ScottWith his sound designer, Pablo Lamar, Mr. Mendonça has created the aural landscape of a horror movie. And, for much of its running time, a thriller without a plot. |
| New York PostV.A. MusettoThe film leisurely unfolds as a series of vignettes about class distinctions and crime, with an unexpected ending. It is beautifully filmed in CinemaScope and strongly acted (especially by Solha), and makes for mesmerizing viewing. |
| Boston GlobeTy BurrNeighboring Sounds unfolds like a casual nightmare in the light of day. |
| EmpireDavid ParkinsonSuperbly judging tonal shifts and juggling disparate storylines, this snapshot of a Refice street reveals the class, gender, racial and historical fissures in Brazilian society, while also making for riveting drama right down to the shocking sting in the tail. |
| The A.V. ClubScott TobiasThe beauty of the film is how organically its themes are presented - it's a slice of life that comes about its sweeping ideas with surprising delicacy. |
| Time OutKeith UhlichFilho so completely calculates his causes and effects, even going so far as to have the villain of the piece literally swimming with sharks, that you never fully feel the senses-altering charge of a truly impassioned polemic. |
| Village VoiceMichelle OrangeA tightening of the two-hour-plus running time might have enhanced the balance between Filho's epic, evocative style and his smaller story about a certain mode of modern life, its lonely confrontations, and the stubborn legacies of the past. |
| Slant MagazineEla BittencourtThe images, while beautiful, are sentimental, as if Kleber Mendonça Filho is trying to negotiate too much. |
| User ReviewrafamottaaMendonça’s first long feature shows his great potential as a director. Neighboring Songs revel it self as beautiful film filled with astonishing images, a powerful song editing, and its go deeply in the life of the Middle Class Recife people showing the extremes of the life in that city. Its violence, the contrasts of the socioeconomic classes, the consume of drugs by the matron, the dominium of the olds traditional rich family’s on the local microcosmic society and the decadency of this micro empire, the noises of the constructions of edifices. The film advances in a slow way, pleasuring the eye with the reality impressed on the film. Mendonça’s ear and lenses point’s on the only place possible to make this film in Recife - their own apartment and street. The film it’s Recife, it’s the Brazil, the realism, the sounds, the noises, the heated fights of the neighboring, the middle class, and the lower class – I see the Brazil contrasts every day in all its extensions. |