O Fantasma (2000)

Young and handsome Sergio works the night shift as a trash collector in Lisbon, Portugal. He can't force himself to connect with his pretty female co-worker Fatima, who displays an avid ... See full summary »

Director:

João Pedro Rodrigues

Writers:

João Pedro Rodrigues, José Neves

Stars:

Ricardo Meneses, Beatriz Torcato, Andre Barbosa

2 wins & 2 nominations.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Ricardo Meneses	...	Sérgio
Beatriz Torcato	...	Fátima
Andre Barbosa	...	João (as André Barbosa)
Eurico Vieira	...	Virgilio
Jorge Almeida	...	Police 1
Salomão	...	Man with Doberman
Joaquim Oliveira	...	Mário
Florindo Lourenço	...	Matos
Rodrigo Garin	...	Young man in bathroom
Luis Zorro	...	Young man in Sergio's room (as Luís Zorro)
Maria Paola Porru	...	João's Mother
João Rui Guerra da Mata	...	Police 2 (as Guerra da Mata)
Lorde	...	Lorde
Swing	...	Doberman

Storyline

Young and handsome Sergio works the night shift as a trash collector in Lisbon, Portugal. He can't force himself to connect with his pretty female co-worker Fatima, who displays an avid interest in him, so instead Sergio roams the city with the trash company's pet dog. Eventually Sergio becomes fascinated with a sleek motorcycle, and then also its owner, João - a young man totally indifferent to Sergio. The frustrated trash collector's surfacing sexual desires unleash his darkest impulses, sending him down a dangerous path of violence, depravity and degradation.

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Plot Keywords:

lisbon portugal | pubic hair | male pubic hair | underwear | male rape | 

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Taglines:

No one can live without love!

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Genres:

Drama

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Certificate:

Unrated

Details

Country:

Portugal

Language:

Portuguese

Release Date:

20 October 2000 (Portugal)

Also Known As:

O Fantasma

Box Office

Opening Weekend USA:

$10,953, 24 November 2002

Gross USA:

$126,783

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$126,783

Company Credits

Production Co:

Rosa Filmes, Radiotelevisão Portuguesa (RTP), Instituto do Cinema, Audiovisual e Multimédia (ICAM)

Technical Specs

Runtime:

87 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

First feature film directed by João Pedro Rodrigues.

User Reviews

A cruel reality resulted from loneliness and desire

`O Fantasma' is definitely a disturbing movie. After seeing it, surely you will leave the movie theater thoughtful, impressed and full of pessimism. A movie that makes you think about loneliness in the big urban areas. A story that may be happening outside your house, while you live a comfortable life inside. It is a lonely world that belongs to the night, to the shadows, making part of the underground of the big cities. Once belonging to this world, it seems that its habitants are deteriorated into indigent human beings, who lose their names, homes and origins.

The movie tells the story of Sergio who works at night as a garbage collector on a big city. He lives alone with his dog - and that introduces you into a universe where man and animal live under merged boundary conditions. Sergio is a lonely guy. Homosexual, he keeps himself away from a female job colleague who is always flirting with him. He has no lover, family or friends. But he seems to be always in the company of an enormous desire, which will conflict with his own loneliness.

Loneliness and desire summarise Sergio's reality and push him into a primitive world, where man becomes animal. The protagonist tries to consume his strong sexual desire through anonymous, casual and wild sex. Thus, it is on the dark corners, public toilets and other filthy places where Sergio tries to satisfy his sexual impulse. But the promiscuity of those moments does not appear to satisfy him, since his desire leads him to the figure of an attractive swimmer guy. A guy who lives in one of the districts that Sergio runs into his night shifts, during his journey of work and garbage. That hard and solitary reality makes desire becomes obsession. Apparently, a single motivation only exists: search the young guy, peeping, observing him from distance and getting touch with an opposite environment.

But Sergio seems to be conducted to an unavoidable end: a curious reversal process of the Human evolution. From human being, he seems to revert through a trail that takes him to some animal condition. As if loneliness and desire would lead to the most primitive stage of mankind. The anti-evolution process transforms him in an irrational creature: he eats, drinks, urinates and evacuates as an animal. It is when Sergio abandons his man's part and, protected by black latex clothes, ruptures with the present and starts roaming on an urban world like an animal guided by his instincts only.

A frightening scenario, result from a contemporaneous reality - at same time empty, isolated and cruel. And that victimized Sergio.