Despite a recent wave of violent crime in the city, manual laborer and night student Valter lives a relatively content life with his family in working-class São Paulo. But when three young criminals move in next door, a bunker mentality sets in and Valter soon discovers he is not the only one perversely affected by the mounting chaos of a city under siege, or the unsettling presence of his new neighbors. Building tension throughout with stylish sequences that blend reality and fevered imagination, Sérgio Bianchi’s gripping domestic thriller offers a shrewd portrait of the social and psychological impact of urban violence, depicting a community beset yet also aroused by a permeating atmosphere of destruction.