O Fantasma

This 2000 debut feature by provocative Portuguese writer-director João Pedro Rodrigues stars Ricardo Meneses as Sérgio, a young Lisbon sanitation worker whose existence is centered on extreme self-gratification. He does show affection for the department’s pet dog, and a pretty co-worker is obviously infatuated with him (even though she’s involved with their boss), but Sérgio spends virtually all of his free time seeking out meaningless trysts with men in public restrooms, masturbating in the shower (using auto-asphyxiation to increase pleasure), and stalking a handsome motorcyclist. When the object of his obsession rebuffs him, Sérgio breaks into the man’s house dressed in a black latex cat’s costume and kidnaps him. After leaving his victim in an alley, Sergio lopes like a feline through the city’s streets towards an ending that reeks of emotional nihilism. Largely because of Meneses’s blank performance, the sexually-explicit O Fantasma is as boring as it is unenlightening. Not a necessary purchase. (F. Swietek)