Claudio Carvalho 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")

katuaba 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.

pf_o_tosco 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!

r-s-cordeiro 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