Based on fragments of a novel from the court of Nero, this story of two students and their ownership of a boy is a celebration of Roman decadence. Visionary, phantasmagoric, at times vulgar and, by the way, often tenderly gay, SATYRICON is fabulous spectacle beyond words and yet rigorous in its respect for how the original comes down to us: fragmentary, intermittently opaque, even incomprehensible, with sudden shifts of tone. Wide-screen composition recreates the depthlessness of a fresco, the music is out of time, but everything throbs with strange violence and baffling sexuality, excessive bingeing jostling philosophical reflection and esoteric poetry.