Metacritic reviews

[Filho's] mastery of pacing, theme and stylistic eccentricity throughout Neighboring Sounds is so assured as to be breathtaking. Don't miss it.

With 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.

The 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.

Superbly 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 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.

Neighboring Sounds unfolds like a casual nightmare in the light of day.

The images, while beautiful, are sentimental, as if Kleber Mendonça Filho is trying to negotiate too much.

Filho 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.

A 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.