The eccentric members of a wealthy Brazilian family each go through personal torment, debauchery and intense guilt. The father has made a fortune in the slaughterhouse business and ignores the feelings of his wife and his workers. When the mother threatens to leave, the father begs for her to stay and continue the hollow charade of their marriage for the sake of social appearances.

Paulo is a middle-class playboy who reluctantly gets involved in a terrorist conspiracy and ends up exiled with the engaged Letícia in an embassy, after a guerrilla camp is discovered by the police and two of them, Sócrates and Mário, fall into shrapnells. Luís and Márcia, a rich couple, spend their time looking for different emotions. They get smet with a couple of lesbians, Márcia flirts with one of them, provoking the jealousy of the other, Susana.

This controversial film from director Glauber Rocha records the funeral of his friend, major Brazilian painter Emiliano Di Cavalcanti.