Pasolini intertwines medieval and present-day stories about two young men ritually done in by their respective societies. Outlaw Pierre Clémenti is banished to a wasteland where he survives by turning happy cannibal, while Jean-Pierre Léaud, an ex–Nazi industrialist’s son, refuses to be groomed into normalcy, preferring pigs to his fiancée (Anne Wiazemsky). Clémenti’s period is observed in near silence, and Pasolini invests this primitive’s experiences with a serene beauty and poetry. Porcile’s shoot suffered from the language barrier between Léaud and Pasolini, which resulted in the filmmaker redubbing Léaud’s voice with another actor’s in postproduction. 35mm print from Istituto Luce Cinecittà.