Lourenço (Selton Mello) is a dealer that buys belongings of needy people by a lower price to profit reselling them. He is a deranged, cold and selfish man that sees people like objects for sale, exploiting their needs. When he meets the waitress of a cheap diner, he falls in love for her butt and does not know what to do when she shows affection for him. He believes that the smell of the sewer strainer of his bathroom is blurring his mind and is a gateway to hell, but refuses to pay for its repair. When a junkie client abused by the power of his money reacts, the world of the controller Lourenço begins to fall apart."O Cheiro do Ralo" is a weird and unpleasant tale of the insanity process of a man completely obsessed by the power of his money. The Kafkaesque story is intriguing but unfortunately goes nowhere and has a pointless end. Selton Mello, as usual, has a magnificent performance but the situations are repetitive and this low-budget Brazilian movie is too long. My vote is six.Title (Brazil): "O Cheiro do Ralo" ("The Smell of the Sewer Strainer")

This movie is repulsive in every way.The main character likes the smell of sewers,and this smell influences his actions through the hole movie.I read some of the reviews and i was excited to see this movie,but with 30 Min's into the movie i was wondering if i shouldn't turn it off,and at the end of it,i wish i had. As a Brazilian,I'm a fan of Brazilian cinema,but this movie is a drawback for Brazilian movies. Selton Mello's Character is ridiculously portrayed,and some scenes are extremely gross,and they stay in your head for all the wrong reasons. I'm giving 1 star because this crappy movie made me sick,it made the new Paris Hilton movie looks like an award winning movie.... DON'T watch it!!!

I felt odd about the movie. I know deep down I both hated it and loved it and I certainly can't stop thinking about it. It really is a sarcastic masterpiece, but very hard to watch. I didn't find it particularly funny in the spots where the audience laughed the most, and often felt horrified. I haven't read the book, which I'm sure is fantastic. Being lucky enough to have lived in Brazil for 7 years in the past, (e sim, eu falo Portuguese), I felt more and more the satiric edge of the main character as a metaphor for the worst things about Brazil lovingly portrayed by a master-- the obsession with the bunda over the female (that scene where he doesn't recognise he is not speaking to his favorite waitress till she turns around was incredible); the buying of worthless, often superstitious items over things really of value (100 rieis for a Stradavarius!?); the man constantly saying, "that smell is not from me, it's the drain;" (that line is especially deep and frightening and I understood it well); him giving all that money for the gun in a scene that looks like robbery; the fake father (leg and eye);his horrible treatment of the weak and helpless and poor; the growing obsession with the smell of his own excrement. I know the movie is a masterpiece-- the trouble is its view of the world through that glass eye is one I, too, would prefer to leave in the next room, perhaps.

Just saw the movie here in São Paulo - Brazil.I gotta say the movie is daring, Selton Melo is brilliant in the role of Lourenço, still different from what I imagined of the character, but keeping the acid and sharp irony we can find in the book.The book seems to "go faster", smoother, it keeps the pace and your attention in a way the movie fails in some punctual moments.It's hard to find flaws in this film, it's extremely good, we learn to love, hate and feel disgust for the main character as we see a lot of ourselves in his sick perception of reality and how it changes through time.It's interesting to notice the presence of the "bitch in pink", the character of the aerobics instructor, from the book "Jesus Kid" also by Lourenço Mutarelli.I'm still impressed by the movie, it's a must, and I'll get it in DVD when it'll be released, but still ... there is something about the book I couldn't get with the film.Anyway it deserves my score