Dos Santos ingeniously weaves five separate stories by Guimaraes Rosa, a character from one story giving birth to one in the next, who is visited upon by someone from the next, and so on. What evolves is a magical-realist tale of a man who abandons his family to live on a boat in the middle of a river; the son, Liojorge, leaves him food each night. Liojorge is led by an enchanted cow to his future wife, and they produce a child who can create miracles. Eventually they must flee the country to the squalor of Brasília. Dos Santos brings in motifs from his own works, from the sertão of Vidas Sêcas to the urban setting of Rio 100 Degrees and the "believing camera" of Amulet of Ogam. As Robert Stam notes, "The film reveals a pessimistic undercurrent within the magical solutions....Dos Santos's vision retains its passionate integrity, and ruefully testifies that even saints aren't safe anymore..."