A short story of love, betrayal, revenge, sex, death and mistreated hearts: Raul comes home to find his wife, Assyria, having sex with another man. He begins for him a spiral of depressive and violent feelings that only seem to pause in the brief moments of leaving the house, attracting the attention of Amanda, a saleswoman. a flower shop.
The film follows Manuel Maria du Bocage, 18th-century poet, as he travels through the world from orgy to orgy and from excess to excess.
Theater director asks his actors for a research on human cruelty and misery in Brazil, while trying to raise funds for his next production, a play based on a story by Machado de Assis, "A Causa Secreta" (The Secret Cause). The troupe oblige and go around town witnessing long lines in National Health Services, inhuman conditions in public hospitals and poor people being constantly humiliated. They find people are becoming indifferent to human suffering.
