User reviews

A great film! More than a great movie it's a very good metaphor to the materialistic and "cold" society we have nowadays, never caring about people's feelings, but about money and power through money instead. The film is full of irony and sarcastic humor and criticizes very well those people who think they can buy everything with their money, even other people. Even the title (which literary translated means "The smell of the drain") is sarcastically humorous and a metaphor to characterize such people, without any character, scrupulous, or even feelings!

The acting by Selton Mello, which plays LOURENÇO, the main character, is excellent! The whole plot is around his character but he does it very well, because he can really be an annoying and irritating character (having that personality I did refer before). The work done by Paula Braun is also very good (and, by the way, she's beautiful!), but I must say I didn't like very much to watch her character fall into LOURENÇO's will, I mean, at the end she does exactly what he wants her to do, when before she had shown a strong character refusing his "indecent proposal": receive some money to show her ass! Of course it's a way this movie has to show us that in this "rotten society" money can really buy anything, and even change people's mind; but I didn't appreciate to watch this changing in the "GARÇONETE" character anyway.

The soundtrack is also fine.

It's a very simple movie, but works very well as a metaphor, so I score it 8/10.

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")

I just saw this in Salt Lake City at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival and was both shocked, amazed, delighted and disgusted by it. It is some kind of weird masterpiece. It's based on a book and the filmmakers at the Q & A said it was very faithfully adapted.

Though the story focuses on the obsessions of its pawn shop owning protagonist, namely a pretty girl's ass, a smelly backed-up bathroom drain, and a glass eye, it still manages to be full of intelligent, thought-provoking ideas and themes.

I really loved this film because it is so unbelievably original and fresh, both in its content and with its form. The viewer never knows where it's going to go as it twists and turns through its strange little storyline.

I just saw the movie few days ago on the Festival De Guadalajara. I saw it and it got me going. The acting is fabulous,every actor takes his part to a great level. And the first sequence is a delight for the eyes, and also the main actor. The irreverence of the movie, from the funny to the disgusting (And all in between) remind us that aesthetic doesn't necessarily means beautiful. With this wicked game of the aesthetic on art department, acting, screenplay and photo, you can't do anything but fall in love, and identify with the main character. I must say that I haven't read the book, but the writer must to be very pleased if he act on the movie (Find him out!) I just hope that it finds a good distributor, because I wanna have it on my collection, and I hope you too.

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.

Most of the times, when we see a movie, we do not see it, we not feel it like a vivid fact, but we see it as a thing that is "out of us", apart of what we experiment each second of our lives.

Cinema is life, vivid experience, you and it, dialog, and not a standard of stimuli that we feel the necessity of fitting and of comparing, it is there to be lived!

Yesterday I began to realize better that, while watching "O cheiro do ralo" of Heitor Dhalia. The movie is brilliant, and the character of Selton Mello even more. Cynical, arrogant, shy and lonely. Lost in the middle of so many objects, which serves to try to provide this 'lack', the lack of something, of feeling, with the other, of contact..."I do not like you and I never liked nobody". The obsession, the money, the ' assumption controls of everything and of all '. Before so many losses he buys, it is the only weapon that he has.

It makes us think about all the nuances that wrap the human life, in all the bizarres thoughts that " we want not to have thought ", or for shame, for fear or for disapproval. It makes us understand that the life is desire, want of living, of feeling, of " being there ".

"O cheiro do ralo" manages with expertise to expose the strange and bizarre daily life of a character that is there on the screen, which is very different from us, but on the same time he manages to say very much of ourselves.

To laugh .... to think ... to get emotional ...to get bothersome ... for me this is life!

Usually, when it comes to Brazilian films, it is common the themes which lies about the rich culture that shape this country or, as has happened recently, addressing the issue of urban violence. Therefore, these issues are also on the films that most Brazilians are recognized internationally. "Drained" is a different case, because it shows a Brazilian film that is not necessarily on a Brazilian theme. It tells a story about the complexity of human relations in their most obscure side, making a portrait full of dark humor. Talks about the way we transform everything into things with prices to be paid for. Selton Mello is perfect in the film, as well as the ambiance and direction. A surreal story, with great moments of humor, is what awaits the spectator of "Drained".

Oftentimes we see movies that try to send a "deep" message. However, many directors, producers (, etc...) have to realize is that it is OK to push the limits; but, cinema requires aesthetics. Not only that, the underpinning idea should have some validity for the audience.

The movie Drained (or The Smell from the Drain, to be more precise) lacks any visual appeal, or any empathy for the underlying motif. So, the question is why bother?

If, your interest in the movie is to get some exposure to the Brazilian culture, forget it. As a Brazilian I felt embarrassed at the end of it. The stereotypical and shallow story telling make this movie a void exercise.

Stelton Mello does a great work as an actor, that is all I could appreciate. That is rarely a good enough reason for making me enjoy a movie.

This movie is very uncommon for Brazilian productions. It is based on a very interesting plot, regarding a man and his obsessions (the smell of a sewer, the butt of a restaurant waitress), and how he deals with different people who want to sell all kind of crazy things.

Although the movie may seem superficial and shallow at first, it actually has subtle messages portraying a desperate and lonely man, who tries to find relief in the material world, but realizes that the problem is within himself.

Finally, I would recommend this movie to everyone who wants to see another kind of Brazilian films, one which is not pure drama or pure comedy, and which tells a story in a very different way.

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

Amazing movie it captures the very deep essence of an ordinary Brazilian man, exaggerating to the limit of what society considers "acceptable" or sociable.

Despising others, playing cynical mind games with his clients, Selton Mello's character oscillates from the abject to more or less acceptable person. He runs a pawn shop, a dirty and smelly place and he wants everyone to know: The bad odour is not coming from him, it is coming from the drain. He is shy, reclusive and obsessed by woman hips, but with special attention to a waitress' from a cheap fast food restaurant. She is his platonic love.

Crude, disgusting, thoughtful, cynical with some dark humor. A hidden gem from Brazilian cinema.

The title Drained (2006) doesn't give a clue of the movie atmosphere. The Brazilian title does: O Cheiro do Ralo - The Smell of the Drain. It's the same title of the book which based the film, released in 2002, written by Lourenço Mutarelli, formerly known in Brazil as a comic book writer. As the name suggests, it's not a movie about beautiful things, not at all. What makes the book and the movie so unique is that the main character is a sociopath: somebody who despises people. I won't say much about the plot, just that Lourenço (the narrator doesn't have a name in the book, so they gave him the writer's name in the film) is a pawn shop proprietor that buys used goods from locals. A sociopath that deals with people everyday... Yes, it's as interesting as it seems! The movie shows his routine, which is repetitive, but entertaining. There is a duality in it, because it's a routine but we stay the whole movie without knowing what to expect. Each person has a different personality and provokes different reactions on Lourenço. The screenplay is very smart and get's the best of each genre: drama, comedy and thriller. Another thing I praise is how the main character is presented throughout the whole movie. There is not the usual beginning scene that shows everything about the main character. We get to know him little by little. The actor who portrays him, Selton Mello, is a terrific actor and his acting in this film is outstanding. It's a very challenging character and he gave realism to him, even though he is so different, a sociopath. The other actors are great and had a good chemistry with Selton. To end this, I highlight the technical features here: the set design (the dirty and old aspect), the costume design (I loved Lourenço's eccentric clothes and the security red outfit), the cinematography (darker and strange atmosphere) and Heitor Dhalia clever and memorable shots.

Reality begins to disintegrate with the infinitesimal event – with the bad smell from drainage or probably with an appearance of some foolish unmotivated desire. And with deteriorating reality personality begins to fall apart faster and faster and the process is irreversible. Drained is an excellent absurdist comedy on degradation and mental decline. Heitor Dhalia also constantly refers to Fyodor Dostoevsky: in Nina there were many allusions to "Crime and Punishment" and here Lourenço may be considered as a reminiscence of Pavel Smerdyakov from "The Brothers Karamazov", whose surname in Russian means something like 'the stinking one' or the son of the 'reeking one', and who in the novel symbolizes the quintessence of meanness and nastiness.

I've heard of theis movie for a while, but never bothered enough to go and see. Now it is showing on Mubi Brazil, and I give it a try, with no information about it and with an open mind. The movie started to lost me in the first minute.

The opening scene is a close up of a girl's but while she is walking on a street for about 2 or 3 minutes. That's a foreshadowing of how bad the next minutes will gonna be. I think this is specially bad, given the stereotype around brazilian men being sex machines and brazilian women being smoking hot and always available for sex.

The following minutes show a kind of unrealistic pawn shop, more like what a rich brazilian film student think a dirty pawn shop is: a giant room with a secretary whose let people in to the office of the owner (the director probably never paid rent from his own pocket in his life, thus, do not even imagine how expensive a place like that would be for rent). There is too an unrealistic an stereotypical portrayal of a poor working class woman. Even showing the dispise rich people in Brazil has with the name choices less fortunate people choose for their children. The name of the waitress whose the butt (the same butt of the beginning of the movie) Selton Melo character is infatuated are not pronounced, cause is a merge of the father, the mother and some famous actress name. He refuses to pronounce because he is a very literate man, whose read many books in a foreign language, you know, like pawn shop owners do.

The main character is disgusting and the poor quality of the script does not allow any immersion in the story. I have only reached the 18 minutes mark before quitting the movie. The movie is from 2006 but by the humor, feels much older. It aged like milk. Fortunately, brazilian cinema has many excellent movies, letting one like this, to be forgotten (like it was right now, only raised from the ostracism by Mubi).