Partant du point de vue de Noam Chomsky, célèbre linguiste, sur les médias, et s'appuyant sur ses réflexions réunies dans ses deux récents ouvrages "Illusions nécessaires" et "la Fabrication du consentement", ce film se penche surtout sur les sociétés démocratiques dont les populations non contraintes par la force sont soumises à des formes plus subtiles d'oppression idéologique. Il examine le pouvoir de l'information et les forces qui, dans la société, s'exercent sur sa formulation et sa propagation.
En 1886, le libraire Adolf Verloc héberge au-dessus de sa petite librairie des réunions d'anarchistes, petits-bourgeois, intellectuels et idéalistes. Il est en fait un agent double à la fois au service des Russes et de la police de sa Gracieuse Majesté. Le lendemain d'une réunion, il est convoqué par Vladimir, un attaché de l'ambassade russe, qui vient de concevoir un plan diabolique : un attentat contre l'observatoire de Greenwich. Verloc est chargé de cette mission.
The film begins with Tunin (Giancarlo Giannini) learning that his friend, an anarchist who was plotting to kill Benito Mussolini, has been killed by Mussolini's fascist police in the countryside. Tunin decides to take up the cause his friend died for. The movie then shows Tunin entering a brothel in Rome and meeting Salomè (Mariangela Melato). The two have a casual sexual encounter. Salomè explains her reasons for helping in the assassination plot as her former lover was wrongfully beaten to death by Mussolini's police in Milan. The story continues as Salomè arranges for her, Tunin and Tripolina (Lina Polito), another prostitute at the brothel, to spend the day with Spatoletti, the head of Mussolini's police. The four of them go to the countryside near Rome where the assassination will take place in several days time. Salomè keeps Spatoletti busy while Tunin scouts out the area and makes a plan. Tunin takes an interest, however, in Tripolina and they fall in love. Tunin convinces Tripolina to spend the next two days with him before the assassination as he fears they may be his last. On the morning of the assassination, Tripolina is supposed to wake Tunin early. She loves him and is scared he will die so she decides she will not wake him. Tripolina and Salomè argue about this and what to do but in the end they decide to let him sleep. Tunin wakes up and is furious at both of them. He goes into a tirade that draws the attention of the police. He starts a shootout with them and screams that he wants to kill Mussolini. He is captured and beaten to death by the police. The film ends the way it began showing the full title of the film "Stamattina alle 10, in via dei Fiori, nella nota casa di tolleranza..." This morning at 10, on Via dei Fiori (Flowers Street), in a noted brothel which is the headline of an unnamed newspaper. The article, displaying fascist censorship, goes on to say that Tunin (who is unnamed) was arrested and then committed suicide.
One narrative follows Miss Monde 1984/Miss Canada (Carole Laure), who wins a contest of the "most virgin"; her prize is the marriage to a milk industry tycoon (John Vernon). However, following his degrading puritanical introduction to intercourse, she vents her intention to leave to her mother-in-law who, at that point, nearly has her killed. The family bodyguard (Roy Callender) takes her away, further humiliates her, and finally packs her in a trunk bound for Paris. She finds herself on the Eiffel Tower, where she absently meets and has intercourse with a Latin singer, El Macho (Sami Frey). The sexual act is interrupted by touring nuns who frighten the lovers into penis captivus. In her post-coital shocked state, she is adopted into an artist community led by Otto Muehl, where she finds affectionate care. The commune practices some liberating sessions, where a member, with the assistance of the others, goes through a (re)birth experience, cries, urinates and defecates like a baby, while the others are cleaning and pampering him. Later she is seen acting for an obscene advertisement, in which she is naked, covered in liquid chocolate.
Rome, années 1930. Libera, fille d'un anarchiste exilé, en a conservé les idées et manifeste avec ostentation sa haine du fascisme. Quoique son attitude première soit plus le reflet d'un acte de refus que celle d'un militantisme politique avéré, Libera est de plus en plus menacée : elle est, entre autres, accusée de provocation par les forces de l'ordre parce qu'au défilé traditionnel du 1er mai, elle et ses deux enfants étaient de rouge vêtus. Face à l'hostilité de l'administration mussolinienne, Libera et sa famille doivent s'établir d'abord à Livourne, puis à Modène où celle-ci s'engage dans la Résistance. Au lendemain de la Libération, Libera tombe sous les balles d'un tueur isolé, nostalgique du fascisme.
In Budapest in 1880 two twin daughters, Dóra and Lili are born. After their mother dies the twins support themselves by selling matches in the street. When they fall asleep one night two men take their matches and, after a coin flip, each takes a girl and go their separate ways.
Set in Berlin, the film opens in 1987 to show a group of radicals battling police but soon moves to the modern day to present the same radical characters brought together once more by an act they carried out in their anti-establishment heyday.
Yoshi éprouve du désir pour quelqu'un qu'il a rencontré dans un parc, alors qu'il lisait l'ouvrage de Frantz Fanon Peau noire, masques blancs. Malheureusement, le nouvel objet de désir va bientôt se marier avec un autre homme, aussi Yoshi et sa bande de queers radicaux décident que ce mariage n'a pas besoin d'avoir lieu.
On the Green Beautiful, a utopian planet much smaller than Earth, Mila, a rather young woman - by the reckoning of her people, at any rate - volunteers to go on planet Earth at the yearly planet reunion. It has been two hundred years since they had last sent Osam (an old sage) and Mila's father there, and they had come back with what they believed were nasty tidings: the people of Earth lived in a generally bad condition. Osam mentions Napoleon and stresses the fact that at that point in the development on earth, there was still money - a notion that baffles even the wisest folk of the Green Beautiful. Apparently, it seems that without money, you have nothing. In time, we find out that important historical figures such as Jesus and Johann Sebastian Bach had come from this very planet.
Together is set in one of the communes that sprang up around Stockholm in the 1970s. Loosely led by the sweet-natured Göran, who will do anything to avoid a conflict, the group spend their time arguing about left-wing politics and other questions such as whether doing the dishes is bourgeois. The commune's dynamics are significantly shaken when Göran's sister, Elizabeth, leaves her violent husband Rolf and moves in, bringing her two children Eva and Stefan.
Le film se passe dans le monde du spectacle. C'est l'histoire de Pablo, un boxeur amoureux de son épouse Aurora. Cette dernière entretient une relation adultère avec un chanteur de cabaret. Quand Pablo surprend les amants, il demande le divorce et entre dans une profonde dépression qui l'amènera à perdre un combat de boxe. C'est alors qu'il connaît Marlène, une artiste de variété, dont le rôle consiste en danser dénudée dans une cage avec quatre lions, et qui est unie sentimentalement à son compagnon de travail, le dompteur Marck.
Le film raconte les activités de Jules Bonnot dans les années 1910. Entourés d'asociaux et d'idéalistes, il se livre à des faits criminels qui mettent la France dans la tourmente.