AllMovie

This unusual comic tragedy is filmed both in color and black-and-white and concerns the residents of the mythical island of Goto. Goto III (Pierre Brasseur) is the pompous dictator who allows children to witness public execution and has criminals fight it out in a theater to resolve their differences. Everyone is assigned a menial position, leading to full employment but aimless pursuits and no chance of social advancement. A man scheduled to fight on stage runs to the dictator's wife and begs for mercy. The man is given a job in the stable but ends up killing the local flycatcher. He tells the dictator that his wife is having an affair with a lieutenant. The informer is given a gun and ordered to kill the lieutenant, but he shoots the dictator instead and assumes power. After the new dictator professes his love for the unfaithful woman, she jumps onto the stage rather than subject herself to his amorous advances in this bizarre story of social isolation and compliance.