Michele is a lonely man, poised between desire and censure. His ‘favela’ is both his refuge and his prison, a last salvation and a slow agony. The past haunts him, while with binoculars he spies on ‘humanoids’, as if on a safari in reverse. He observes but does not touch. He scrutinises but does not belong. The ‘favela’ is his purgatory: it keeps him alive, but suffocates him. He dreams of taking a woman there, of interrupting the solitude that shackles him. He looks for love in newspaper ads or in the woods.