More precisely than Buñuel's Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, more gently than Pasolini's Salò, Ferreri's breakthrough international hit mixes and then explodes every metaphor for bourgeois power and stasis. Four gourmands-Marcello (Mastroianni), Ugo (Tognazzi), Philippe (Noiret) and Michel (Piccoli)-repair to a disused villa for a blow-out gastronomical weekend. Marcello brings a beautiful Bugatti; Michel, gas (natural); Ugo, his prized culinary skills; and Philippe, a schoolteacher (Andrea Ferreol) who becomes Snow White to the four sedulous sensualists. They are joined for a time by three call girls but the tarts can't get with the food thing and leave. Then the subtle shift in mood is masterful as the men's true drive becomes clear: they will eat themselves to death, methodically, mechanically, bowing to the inevitable, what Ugo calls "the universal deluge of shit." This bawdy, bad-taste beautiful comedy of the body mécanique doesn't just erupt, it disrupts. Repeated January 4 and 11.