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A fable about power, sex, and gastronomy that is not childish at all.

Estômago (Stomach) is a Brazilian film of 2007, about a northeasterner immigrant that goes to an unnamed southern city without a penny to his name and makes his living as an unpaid cook at a shabby cantina in the city. The film alternates between his time in prison, shown as the present, and his past life in the past, still as a cook, and what leads him to commit a crime that would lead to his incarceration.


This work has examples of the following tropes:

  • Affably Evil: Nonato/Alecrim, towards the end.
  • Almost Kiss: More of aborted kiss, as Iría would not kiss Nonato as she views him as another client or friend with benefits.
  • Anti-Villain: Nonato/Alecrim responds with evil as a reaction to people around him trying to use him for their own ends, without any consideration for his feelings or wellbeing.
  • Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Or else, Break-in, Robbing, and Double Murder, in the finale: Nonato breaks into the restaurant without authorization, catches his boss and his lover in the act, drinks his special birthday wine, and then, well, double murder occurs.
  • Awesomeness by Analysis: it is implied that Nonato learns about ingredients and how to prepare them by seeing them being used only once. Either that or he researches more about them offscreen and studies them thoroughly).
  • The Bad Guy Wins: Sort of. Alecrim prevails over the prison hierarchy, but becomes a complete sociopath in the end.
  • Beware the Nice Ones: Nonato/Alecrim can be easily underestimated given that he is a dorky-looking, frail man.
  • Bilingual Bonus: Giovanni gives an order to one of his chefs in Italian. Nonato tries to mockingly imitate that order, only for the chef to call him a stronzo (idiot).
  • Black-and-Gray Morality: Most people in the film act out of their own interests, and even the informed criminals (and the slaver) are not shown doing anything more offensive than using coarse language and menacing to beat Nonato/Alecrim for something wrong he does. Nonato, on the other hand, goes from committing a crime of passion to becoming a cold-blooded murderer in the end of the movie.
  • Blatant Lies: You know...Seu Zulmiro pays me full work benefits... You want benefits? A benefit is telling Seu Zulmiro to go fuck himself!
  • Break the Cutie: Nonato starts out as a really nice person. By the end of the movie, after witnessing Iria with Seu Giovanni and going to prison.
  • Brick Joke: The coxinha of Seu Zulmiro.
  • Chef of Iron: While not a true fighter, Nonato can withstand rough punishment from life itself.
  • Chekhov's Skill: The ingredients and skills as a cook that Nonato uses as a free man later help him to become the prison's cook and to take Bujiú's place at the top.
  • Death by Origin Story: Nonato goes to prison and becomes Alecrim after his double murder of Iria and Seu Giovanni.
  • Deconstruction: Sort of a deconstruction of both underdog becomes successful entrepreneur, cooking movies, and prison movies. The underdog succeeds by destroying any signs of humanity inside himself, and the glamour of the restaurant business is toned down with some of its more realistic aspects. In the prison, the most violent prisoners are indeed the ones who predominate, but the power of money and social influence is shown to be equal or even greater in strength than mere muscle.
  • Despair Event Horizon: When Nonato sees Iria French-kissing his boss.
  • The Dog Bites Back: What Nonato does, with growing prejudice and maliciousness, against Seu Zulmiro, Seu Giovanni and Iria, and lastly, to Bujiú.
  • Downer Ending/Bittersweet Ending: The Bad Guy Wins in the end and is shown planning on killing all his way through the underworld hierarchy until the very top.
  • Evil Feels Good: Alecrim grows to really like murdering people treacherously.
  • Gaining the Will to Kill: Nonato drinks a entire bottle of wine for getting the courage for his first crime.
  • Genre-Busting: A psychological-entrepeneurial-cooking-prisional-noir-surrealistic, existentialist thriller and drama.
  • Heroic BSoD: Nonato on seeing Iria and Giovanni together.
  • He Who Must Not Be Seen: Nonato's mother, who is mentioned as having come to tend for him, but not appearing in film.
  • Foreshadowing: When Nonato is working for Giovanni, the latter tells the former that the filet mignon is the best cut of beef, comparing it to a woman's butt. The climax reveals that after killing Giovanni and Iria in bed, Nonato cut off a piece of Iria's butt like a filet mignon and cooked it.
  • Love Triangle: It's not stated that Iria loves neither Nonato nor Giovanni: she just likes to hang out with him for the food, and she likes men with power and ability at food making. It just happens that Seu Giovanni is a even better cook than Nonato, or a good cook THAT also is somewhat rich and powerful.
  • Meaningful Name: Or nicknames.
    • Raimundo Nonato was a Catholic saint who fought against slavery, and went to jail himself, where he was able to convert other prisoners and some guards to his faith, and got canonized after being rescued from the Turks and dying from exhaustion as a result of the mistreatment he suffered.
    • His second name, Nonnatus, also means not born in Latin: Nonato can ben considered not born for being a pariah both in the big city and when he first arrives in prison.
    • "Alecrim", or Rosemary is the name of a kitchen herb. Ironically, it is s said to be related to love and remembrance.
    • Kidnapping, because he was arrested for just that.
    • Bujiú because he looks like a howler monkey, or Bugio in Portuguese.
  • Mega Manning: How Nonato (d)evolves from a simple immigrant to a Lethal Chef.
  • Mystery Meat:
    • Nonato tries to impress Bujiú by preparing an ant crumb after learning about a Colombian recipe by another prisioner. The boss at first likes it, then asks I Ate WHAT?! and promptly beats Rosemary for it.
    • In the great dinner for Etctéra, his attempts to serve carpaccio and explain a wine bouquet almost result in the same impression by the guests, with Bujiú ordering him to COOK the carpaccio (serving the meat raw is the whole point) and serving jail-made liquor while only Nonato and a gay/transgender couple drinks any wine.
  • Mood Motif: The background music, especially done to match with Nonato/Alecrim feelings.
  • Protagonist Journey to Villain: Both in the case of Nonato and Rosemary, doubling as a sort of How We Got Here.
  • Psychotic Smirk: Dr. Horrible, at the end of Act II as he starts singing "Brand New Day."
  • Rule of Symbolism:
    • When Nonato is first imprisoned by Seu Zulmiro and introduced to the prison: the two doors are shot as the same one.
    • Bujiú's name (Howler) can be considered indicative of his position as the top monkey inside the cell hierarchy.
  • Sanity Slippage: What happens to Nonato.
  • Sanity Slippage Song: The soundtrack accompanies the Heroic Breakdown of Nonato and his Split Personality moments, and even plays drunkenly when he drinks jail-made liquor with the other inmates.
  • Sarcasm Mode:
    Rosemary: The doctors said that Bujiú died of a virus. I just thought it was because of the poison that I slipped in his special feijoada.
  • Split-Personality Takeover: The entire movie can be interpreted as the sociopathic and evil Rosemary personality taking over the humble and defensive Nonato one.
  • Stalker with a Crush: Nonato stalks Iria to Seu Giovani's restaurant, when he had other sexual and maybe love options around.
  • Start of Darkness: Nonato sees Iria and Seu Giovanni making out and murders them both.
  • Secret Ingredient: The ant crumb. And the poison in the final feijoada for Bujiú.
  • Supreme Chef: How Nonato views Seu Giovanni, and what he arguably is. What Nonato becomes thanks to his innate genius and Mega Manning.
  • Villain Protagonist: Or else, how a Hero and Cosmic Plaything becomes a Villain.
  • Villain with Good Publicity: Nonato tries to impress the other inmates by naming himself Nonato Shivblade but ends up being named Alecrim (Rosemary) after the kitchen herb. And manages to kill the cell boss under that name and the resulting reputation.
  • Villains Out Shopping: Not shown onscreen all the time, but Rosemary asks Bujiú to procure food through the black market for him to prepare. Somewhat literally, in the scenes where Nonato learns from his masters and when he gets fun with the other prisoners. And literally when he goes first with Seu Giovani and then with Iria to the grocery fair of the town.
  • Tastes Like Friendship: How Nonato attracts people and then makes them lower their guard to him.
  • Team Chef: What Alecrim becomes in jail.
  • Victor Gains Loser's Powers:
    • Seu Zulmiro defeats Nonato and uses his super-cooking to pimp up his cantina with him as a slave. Nonato learns how to prepare Brazilian pastries from him and then dumps him for a real job.
    • Seu Giovanni makes Nonato his Dragon at the kitchen and teaches him about haute cuisine and fine ingredients, and Iria teaches Nonato about sex and deceitfulness. After that he kills then and literally eats Iria's vitality.
    • In prison he becomes Alecrim, where he defeats the other inmates in relative importance, then finally defeating the Big Boss himself, gaining his 'brawn' powers and jail 'respect' for himself.
  • What Does She See in Him?: Iria gets interested in the dorky Nonato because of his good cooking.
  • What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: Nonato's "superpower" of incredible cooking and encyclopedic knowledge about gastronomy are basically his only powers against two greedy capitalists (and a not so kind hooker) with more money and foreknowledge than himself, and then in a cell where even the weakest prisoner could easily beat the crap out(or shiv off his lungs) of him. He does prevail over them all in the end.
  • Your Favorite: How Bujiú meets his demise: poisoned feijoada.
  • Who's Laughing Now?: Alecrim ("Rosemary") does this somewhat amicably to Seu Zulmiro when he returns to his cantina.

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