AllMovie

This French biopic offers a dramatized profile of the notoriously earthy 16th-century French doctor, humanist and satirist, Francois Rabelais. It was filmed in the region of Lire where the author once lived. At the story's core is a tremendous outdoor banquet, for 500 people, in celebration of the author's 500th birthday. As they dine, scenes that evoke images from his works are depicted, including a giant puppet representing Gargantua, and a tribe of mud-caked men bursting out of a field of sunflowers. The diners are urged to revel until they die, and dinner conversation runs the gamut of earthy topics.