Four friends, Marcello, Philippe, Michel and Ugo, lock themselves up in an old country house for a weekend, intending to commit suicide by overdosing on sex alcohol and food.

“The Festival has seen its most degrading day and France its most sinister humiliation”. These words were heard after the film’s screening in Cannes in 1973, a film now unanimously considered as a major work in cinema. “We held a mirror up to people and they did not like seeing themselves in it. It’s revealing of a great stupidity.” said Philippe Noiret about the incendiary comments from the press and public when this immense rabelaisian firebrand was released.