A supposedly idyllic weekend trip to the countryside turns into a never-ending nightmare of traffic jams, revolution, cannibalism and murder as French bourgeois society starts to collapse under the weight of its own consumer preoccupations.
Marseille. Heaps of flowers and funeral wreaths... "A man who no longer defends his colors is no longer a man."
Julien Bouin, a former typographist, and his wife Clemence, who used to perform in a circus, hardly talk to each other in their small house, soon to be demolished. His cat Greffier being the only one he still gives affection to, he becomes the object of Clemence's anger.
A wealthy amnesiac begins to suspect that his devoted wife is not really his wife and that he is not the man people keep telling him he is.
A neurosurgeon with a cheating wife takes an amnesiac into his home and conditions him to believe that the cheating wife is his own and to take the "appropriate" action.
Ambrosio is a monk who is sexually tempted by an emissary of the Devil, a young girl in monk's robes. After he has committed numerous crimes, it appears that he will be caught and punished by the Inquisition. Instead, he signs up on the Devil's team and wins his freedom.. and eventually, the papacy.
Five unrelated tales: (1) "The Ravishing Queen" / "La Reina Bella", in which the queen choses a king by devious endurance tests of the pretendants; (2) "The Punished Lovers", in which a fake blind husband is 'cured' after having the culprits banished from the tribe; (3) "The Old Prostitute" who manages to take revenge from all the village dignitaries who wrongfully condemned her brother; (4) "The Endless Search" that does not end until a hunter finds his perfect end-game; (5) "The Crazy Woman" whose illness was not exactly of the mind, but of an (almost) insatiable lust.
A network of spies affects the lives of people in and out of the organization in this espionage drama. Dominique is the neglected wife of a spy who tracks him down at a Paris antique shop. Finding him with a female spy, the enraged wife shoots both of them. Dominique hides out on a boat while the police investigate the murders, and international spies scramble to recover some missing microfilm. Helen is the spy boss who orders a hit man to go after Dominique.
A group of people visit a weird old man who is a student of the black arts. The man lives in an ancient, cursed castle. Soon people in the group start being killed off.
A young girl witnesses a violent and ultimately fatal act between her mother and another man and it emotionally scars her for years to come. As a young woman, she takes a vacation with a more worldly girlfriend to Sardinia, and in doing so, attracts the attention of a young man in the village. Despite her interest in the man her haunted past prevents her from developing a normal relationship with him.
A woman learns that she is sole legatee of her forgotten rich uncle, but there is a small problem: she's got to be a widow to latch onto the dough or the fortune will go to a vague sect...
In a small western town the ineffable judge Roy Bean metes out justice in his own special way. A cargo of gold is ambushed by the outlaw Black Bird who fails in the attempt and then rides into town.
When a journalist is murdered Inspector Micheli begins to investigate. Although someone comes forward to confess to the crime, Micheli doesn't believe he acted alone and keeps investigating despite coming under pressure to close the case.
Maddalena finds that her donkey has reappeared after being missing for months. However, on the same day, a donkey disappears in a neighboring village. The unfortunate coincidence leads to "war" between the two villages.
The master, telling a lot of love or erotic oriental tales, teaches the secrets of the most natural, complete and satisfactory copulation.
