Beginning with a brilliant, half-hour, almost wordless sequence showing a group of student waiters arriving at a huge chateau to assist in a dinner party given by a Grand Old Lady, Olmi sets up a strange parable quite unlike anything he has ever done before. The guests are a monstrous group of bankers, scientists, and industrialists who eat badly and behave badly until the youngest of the students flees the chateau in horror. Olmi fills his canvas with funny, bizarre , and unexpected incidents taking in life both above and below the stairs. Memories of Fellini (the guests seemingly symbolized by the huge ugly fish they eat) and Buñuel (innocence contrasted with the bastions of bourgeois society) abound, yet Olmi's vision remains his own. Olmi has always preferred love to hate and even the marvelous growling dog finally finds a friend.