The scenario is the Brazilian city of São Paulo. In the opening scene of the first chapter Laura and Israel, a couple of several years' standing are having a listless conversation that mixes everyday matters (such as the care of their son Lucas) with more esoteric questions such as: Would you like to know in advance the manner of your death? Other conversations follow, of which Laura is a part. These, in combination with a family scene and a chance encounter in the subway throw some light on Laura's past and on her relationship with Israel. Of his past we don't learn much. The chapter ends with the disappearance of Laura on a trip of unknown destination

In the second chapter Israel receives news about the end of Laura's trip in Argentina; the message comes from Julio, a man Israel has never heard of. He needs to confront bureaucracy to tie up loose ends. In the third chapter we witness Laura during her trip in a phantasmagoric bus; her travel mates are Julio and several women that tell tales or sing songs, some having to do with their place in society and their aspirations.

The film develops at a slow pace and in some conversations the characters are carefully framed, artificially lighted, and deliver their lines with measured, almost monotonic tones, bringing to mind the work of Bresson and Antonioni. The slowness of the action is sometimes interrupted by frenetic, loud, jarring interludes like one where Israel is apparently running in place on a moving platform, perhaps a symbol for his frustration and his feeling of going nowhere. The last scene, possibly dreamed by Israel conveys a touching picture of loss and despair.

I don't know to what extent I understood this movie, but watching it was a positive experience. The original title means "exile" or "banishment". It has been translated by the streaming services to "Abandonment" with some loss of meaning.

With the thorough artificiality of dailylife and emotion, "Desterro" shows us how stagnate the human life is (especially for Brazillian, after Bolsonaro regime?). But this film deepens, with the burreaucratic absurdness and terrifyingly materialistic approach to death, as the heartrending and enigmatic apocalypse of a woman who can't stand all the things anymore. What a haunting masterpiece.