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.
Review of O Cheiro do Ralo
