Brazlian director Beto Brant's Sao Paulo-set thriller is grainy, grim and quite gruesome. Anisio (Paulo Miklos) is a sewer rat, played with an unmistakable touch of the greasy forelock to De Niro's Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver, biting the hands of a couple of crooked businessmen (Marco Ricca, Alexandre Borges) who've paid him to murder their business associate. Paulo exceeds orders. He kills the man's wife, too, and cashes in her jewellery. He then attaches himself to the men's construction business, less for blackmail money than for the social elevation it gives him. This parasite, who preens and primps like a cocky gigolo, is emblematic of the opportunism needed to cross the social chasm between Brazil's rich and poor.
The Trespasser is rich in lurid detail, from the dingy favellas of the have-nots to the brothels and drinking clubs of middle-classes out slumming, and the apartment blocks of those who've made it. Several times, the action stops altogether while the camera takes us on a nocturnal travelogue of the 'hoods to the accompaniment of a hip-hop soundtrack. A modest, roughcut but striking movie.
The Trespasser (O Invasor)
Cert: cert18
