AllMovie

The "clowns" in this downbeat, sometimes brutal drama are anything but. The story is set among the down and out of Paris, none of whom are wholly sane. Melies (Daniel Kenigsberg) is an alcoholic whose former purpose in life was to make films. Now he focuses on drinking and his love for the ill-fated Absinthe (no doubt her name, as well as Melies of silent movie fame, were chosen with double meanings in mind). Absinthe wanders out of Melies's life and is gang-raped, leaving her even more withdrawn and out of touch with reality than before. She finds some refuge for awhile with a man named Carcass. Another character is looking for God in the sewers and watering holes of Paris but finds only misery and personal suffering, as a loveless and cruel world emerges into all of their lives.