This Portuguese film is about Sergio (Ricardo Meneses), a young brooding and lonely man who works the night shift as a trash collector in Lisbon, Portugal. Sergio lives in the room of a run-down pension, and is alienated from life with no friends or family. Even his sexual encounters fail to engage him or satisfy his desires. He roams the city with the company's guard dog, Lord, engages in anonymous sex and tries to rebuff the advances of his co-worker Fatima (Beatriz Torcato). Sergio becomes obsessed with his neighbour's motorcycle, and then also its arrogant owner, João (Andre Barbosa), a young man totally indifferent to Sergio. The frustrated Sergio unleashes his darkest impulses, sending him down a path of violence and depravity. Sergio stalks João , eventually donning bondage gear and making the motorcyclist his love prisoner. After having his way with his captive, Sergio vanishes into the night and prowls the city's garbage dumps in a strange odyssey of sexual dysfunction and cruelty. Shot almost entirely at night, director João Pedro Rodrigues has created a haunting study of the alienation and despair that fill modern urban life, and the devastation that solitude and repressed sexuality can inflict on the psyche. This film won awards from the New York Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, Entrevues Film Festival, and others. Alexandre Melo and José Neves wrote the script. The English title is "The Phantom".
