There’s a pleasantness to Gabriel Mascaro’s Neon Bull that’s surprising, given its aggressive environment. Mascaro focuses his film on workers for the Vaquejadas, a rodeo where two cowboys have to grab a bull by the tail and drag it to the ground. But instead of profiling one of the cowboys, Mascaro looks at a small family-like unit of workers behind the scenes: cowhands Iremar (Juliano Cazarre) and Ze (Carlos Pessoa), truck driver Galega (Maeve Jinkings) and her daughter Caca (Aline Santana). With little to no narrative, Neon Bull prefers to establish a beguiling and gently subversive tone through its unique characters.

Iremar, Galega and new cowhand Junior (Vinicius de Oliveira) provide the film’s subversive elements through either their own traits or their relationships with other characters (which, given the way Mascaro merely presents these elements as they are, makes them more fascinating than provocative). Iremar has a passion for designing clothes, using Galega as his model; Galega spends her nights performing exotic dances wearing hooves and a horse head; and the feminine-looking Junior (due to his long mane of hair) starts up a relationship with Galega that suggests underlying tension between Iremar and Galega. It may be difficult to parse out exactly what Mascaro wants to say with his film (and I wouldn’t be surprised if some of his ideas might have been lost in translation), but with director of photography Diego Garcia (who also lensed TIFF highlight Cemetery of Splendour) he creates a truly unique mood helped by unforgettable images: naked men showering together in a barn, Galega dancing in her horse costume under red lights, and Iremar rummaging through trash to look for mannequin parts. It’s a mood that combines the real, the surreal, and the banal, and merges them together to make a film that continues to inspire curiosity long after the credits roll.

The neighborhood watch has probably never felt as unsafe as it does in Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Neighboring Sounds. The Brazilian drama, which snatched up a FIPRESCI prize at Rotterdam, is a well-done but a flawed debut feature. Filho shows off some impressive skills as a director that’ll certainly make him someone to watch in the future, but his ambitious approach ends up straining what could have been a much better film.

The movie starts with a series of black and white photographs at a sugar mill before cutting to children playing around an apartment building. The city is Recife, and we soon learn that the street the film takes place on is the fruits of one family’s labor at the sugar mill (or, more accurately, the fruits of other people’s labor). Francisco (W.J. Solha) owns the majority of the real estate on his street, while his grandson João (Gustavo Jahn) tries to sell condos in his family’s apartment building. The neighborhood seems ordinary, but there’s a mean streak just below the surface. A woman poisons a neighbor’s dog who keeps her up at night, a man keys the car of a woman who treats him poorly and someone keeps stealing CD players out of cars.

It’s at this point that a group of men offering security for the street swoop in to provide their services. Everyone agrees, and Francisco gives his blessing but strictly tells the guards not to bother his grandson Dinho (Yuri Holanda) who, naturally, is the one breaking into all the cars. The plot is established at a leisurely pace, and in no time the security crew is patrolling the streets.

What Filho shows throughout Neighboring Sounds is how tense the class relations are between the upper class residents of the neighborhood and their lower class workers. While the neighbours all agree to hire security, a subtle power shift begins to occur within the street. The presence of guards throughout the day does nothing but heighten everyone’s fears over petty crimes, with most people staying locked in their homes instead of going outside.

Most of Neighboring Sounds’ power comes from Filho’s observational skills. In the first hour most of the film feels like an ensemble piece with the camera cutting back and forth between different residents while showing their daily turmoils. Filho has a precise style with the camera always moving smoothly (there appears to be little to no handheld or steadicam shots throughout the film) which heightens the prison-like feeling most of its characters are experiencing. Filho manages to balance his rigid style with a warm visual palette and naturalistic performances from his cast that removes any sense of distance from its characters.

Unfortunately, Neighboring Sounds starts to wear out its welcome by the end. Running at 130 minutes, the film starts to stretch out its premise to the breaking point. Later sequences including a birthday party for an unknown character start to drag things down, and despite a strong ending that brings most of Filho’s themes to the forefront the impact is dulled from the drawn out scenes before it. If Neighboring Sounds was able to keep up the momentum from its first half the film would have been something truly great, but nonetheless it’s still an impressive debut feature.

Neighboring Sounds, which had its U.S. premiere in the New Directors/New Films program earlier this year, has slowly been building buzz over the last several months. After immediately getting its U.S. rights snatched up by The Cinema Guild. According to Ryan Krivoshey (from The Cinema Guild), “It completely blew us away. I’m tempted to say Kleber Mendonça Filho is a director to watch, except that he’s already delivered a work that is a must-see. We can’t wait for audiences to discover this film.” Here’s a brief synopsis:

“Life in a middle-class neighborhood in present day Recife, Brazil, takes an unexpected turn after the arrival of a private security firm. Intended to bring a sense of safety and calm, the mysterious firm instead exposes the residents’ long-repressed discontents and anxieties, setting in motion a series of events that will forever change this once sleepy community.”

Based on the trailer it looks like Neighboring Sounds is going to be an intense film. Neighboring Sounds will get a limited release by The Cinema Guild this fall.

Watch Neighboring Sounds official trailer: