"Sena presents 'Jaguar,' a retired major and ferocious macho who philosophizes about life while persecuting bandits - narcotraffickers, kidnappers, thieves, killers - and who is himself killed in an ambush. Dead, he returns to his apartment in Bairro das Graças and listens to the objects of his life. Recife is the 'desert of the dead' and the major has the final word, living in the desert of the urban milieu of the Northeast. Jaguar is a nordestino of the Sargento Getúlio (João Ubaldo Ribeiro) race, a delegado now reflecting on his life which is narrated by domestic objects, plants, and the landscape surrounding him"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 58.