Drifter

This impressionistic documentary makes a connection between walking and thinking. In the countryside of the Minas Gerais province in northeastern Brazil, the film follows the individual paths of three drifters in the true sense of the word: homeless and always on the road. As they walk along asphalt roads vibrating with heat, the cars, buses and trucks fly by them, distant messengers of a world with which they have lost all contact, whether they wanted to or not. There's no destination, no purpose for their travels, but the constant movement from one place to another is the purpose unto itself. Filmmaker and artist Cao Guimarães takes the time to not only show the emptiness, the isolation, the heat and the night, but also to make it all palpable. He's not a storyteller, but a painter with images. In long, static shots, he studies all three men as phenomena; he doesn't pose any questions about their personal histories, but captures the manner in which they create a relationship with a physical environment that keeps changing. Landscapes, objects, animals and people often assume picturesque forms in this subdued documentary.