The Persistence of the Countryside: Urban Horror and Political Terror in 'Neighboring Sounds'

• In Event: Space and Ecocriticism in Latin American Film

Abstract

O Som ao redor (Neighboring Sounds), the 2012 Brazilian film by Kleber Mendonça Filho, set in the northeastern city of Recife, presents one of the fascinating paradoxes of the contemporary megalopolis in Latin America: the social and historical matrix of the rural often persists in the mechanics of the urban space. The film's plot is permeated by social class tensions and a past of political violence, but it does so in very subtle ways: in its playful use of music, editing, sounds, and shock to bring the film close to an almost unbearable atmosphere of disquieting suspense; in its harsh portrayal of middle class life and how it connects to the neoliberal urbanization of Brazilian culture; in the interactions between maids and housewives, watchmen and condo owners; and in the maneuverings of a well-off neighborhood that has bought into urban fear and thus feels compelled to find myriad ways of feeling 'secure'--with iron gates and private guards, with alarms and gated condominiums. But what is remarkable about the film is how the urban world that it depicts is persistently linked to a past of rurality, violence and social oppression; the ultra modern, vertical Recife of Neighboring Sounds cannot escape plantation culture, "caciquismo," stultifying social hierarchy. This paper aims to examine how, narratively, visually and aurally, Neighboring Sounds manages to reproduce a hyper modernized urban space that is imbued with the historical conundrums of the Brazilian countryside of the Northeast.

Author

• Carmelo Esterrich, Columbia College Chicago