Dos Santos moved away from the increasing avant-gardism of Cinema Nôvo with this film made "for the people." It is both a gangster film and a celebration of the Afro-Brazilian religion umbanda, shot entirely in Caxias, a growing working-class city near Rio de Janeiro. A young man, Gabriel (played by dos Santos's son, Ney Sant'anna), from the impoverished northeast, becomes a denizen of Rio's violent outskirts. Protected from harm by a ritual amulet given him by an umbanda priest, the bullet-proof boy catches the attention of the local crime boss. Gabriel's odyssey from innocence to underworld, death, and resurrection is told in the form of a popular ballad whose singer announces the film's magical-realist premise: "I'm going to tell you a story that really happened and which I just invented." Dos Santos: "The camera is a believer."