Burning Night

Down on his luck and recently divorced, Paulo (Boliveira) has begun driving a cab around Rio, hoping he'll make enough to send his ex money to support their ten-year-old son. He mostly works nights, so in addition to his encounters with a colorful variety of customers, colleagues, cops and others, he must cope with loneliness, fatigue and new faces in his life. Rocha's documentary background ensures a very effective interweaving of fiction and footage shot on the streets, while the camerawork and editing have a hallucinatory quality appropriate to Paulo's nocturnal existence. A persuasive portrait both of a vibrant, volatile city which embraces a range of different experiences and moods, and of a sometimes strangely unfamiliar world stumbling towards an uncertain future.