A scathing critique of corrupt French society cloaked in a comedy of manners, in which a weekend at a marquis's countryside chateau lays bare some ugly truths about a group of haute bourgeois acquaintances. The film was a victim of tumultuous history: it was subjected to cuts after premiere audiences rejected it in 1939, and the original negative was destroyed during World War II. It wasn't reconstructed until 1959. That version, which has stunned viewers for decades, is presented here.