This Brazilian film is set during the period of its initial colonial discovery and settlement. The title refers to a word the native peoples used for the coastal lands: "pindorama," or "place of the small trees." A ponderous and grandiose film, it was roundly booed when it was aired at the 1971 Cannes Film Festival.

Country boy arrives in Rio de Janeiro, looking for a better life, but he finds it extremely difficult to get a job, and even has to work as a pimp in order to survive.

Young congressman Miguel Horta represents a party that is directly opposed to the present government. He slyly switches parties in order to gain favor with those in power, seriously compromising his own ideals and ethics in the process.

When the child Manuel wanders into a garden that is off-limits to him, he meets an unidentified fisherman, and another boy -- the boy is actually himself several years down the road. Manuel experiences three different versions of his encounters in the garden, revealing that fate can have several twists and turns in one's life, depending on decisions that are made early on.

Simeão is a good and simple man but a little too lively for a small city in the middle of Brazil. The most respectable citizens of this town start to think about how they are going to kick him out.

In the early seventies in Rio de Janeiro, detective Mariel Moryscötte de Mattos belonged to a special police force called "The Golden Men". This powerful group of the elite of the police was created with the intention of eliminate crime from Rio de Janeiro, and they had privileges above law to expedite their action against the outlaws. However, absolute power in wrong hands corrupts, and this group formed the "Death Squad", executing criminals without the conventional trial from the justice.