The Criterion Collection's website states "Provocateur Pier Paolo Pasolini is at his most incendiary in this double-edged allegory on fascism, consumerism, and resistance. .... these stories of transgression form a scathing commentary on postwar European moral rot and the meaning of rebellion in the face of a corrupt world."[1]
The first story is set around 1500 on the slopes of Etna in Sicily, and is completely devoid of dialogue until the protagonist's final line. A young man wanders around a volcanic landscape killing and eating insects and small animals. He flees from garrisons of soldiers, fearing that he might be seen and only approaches corpses. Soon, he is no longer satisfied with animal flesh and wants to experience the taste of human flesh; a short time later, seeing the same garrison that he had seen at the beginning of the film, he manages to attract a soldier and kill him. After this first act of cannibalism, other people start joining him on his journey, including some women.
After more carnage, news of the cannibals' raids reach a village. Soon, they are surrounded and captured by the locals. During the capture, Clémenti recites the famous tagline of the film: "I killed my father, I ate human flesh and I quiver with joy." Poles are erected and the cannibals are tied to them, left to be devoured by stray dogs.
The story is about the human capacity of destruction and a rebellion against the social prerequisites implied against it.
The second story is set during 1967, in a villa in Godesberg, Germany, where a young man named Julian leads a flat and confined existence, which causes him to neglect his radically politicised fiancée Ida. His father, industrialist Herr Klotz, tries to convince his son to hurry up with his marriage, but Julian is adamant. Julian also harbours a secret, which is that he secretly sneaks into a pigsty and lies with the pigs whenever he has the chance.
The family situation worsens even more when Julian falls into a state of trance, stretching out on an armchair, remaining indifferent to everything that happens around him. In the meantime, two men arrive at the villa, one of whom, Hans Guenther, introduces Mr. Herdhitze, his rival and old comrade in arms, to Klotz. Klotz is initially tempted to blackmail Herdhitze after hearing about his macabre background from Guenther about some Jewish bodies that Herdhitze allegedly kept to conduct questionable experiments. Herdhitze arrives at Klotz's villa proposing him to join the company. The man refuses, but is then forced to reconsider due to Herdhitze's revelation, informed of Julian's scandalous dealings with pigs.
While all this is happening, Julian recovers and decides once and for all to have a clear and precise discussion with Ida, revealing his ideas about love, even though he doesn't talk to her about his relationships. Afterwards, while Ida leaves the villa to marry someone else and while Klotz and Herdhitze are forming a company, Julian heads to the pigsty, allowing himself to be devoured by pigs. Julian's end is not shown but is instead told in a dialogue between Herdhitze and the gardener of the villa, Maracchione. Since there is nothing left of Julian, as the pigs had eaten his entire body, Herdhitze tells Maracchione to be silent about matter.
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