A red-hot poker thrust into the Brazilian body politic, this passionate cry sets into motion a number of characters whose meanderings, misadventures, and interactions expose sad traditions of corruption and hypocrisy. Proudly agitprop, the film challenges viewers with its confrontational, Brechtian-flavored exploration of the relations among the management, staff, and customers of an upscale São Paulo restaurant; each sequence, each encounter, is seen through the prisms of class, race, region, gender, and sexuality. Not since the heady days of Cinema Nôvo has a Brazilian film caused so much intense reaction and heated debate at home. Bianchi's accusations clearly pertain to contemporary Brazil, but non-Brazilian viewers should also find some uncomfortable parallels in this scathing portrait of a society in which all values are market values.