这是一部半自传体的电影，改编自Arrabal自己的小说Baal Babylon。它讲述的是西班牙内战期间一个小男孩寻找自己被捕的父亲的故事，这个故事非常暴力、残酷和超现实。当小男孩得知是母亲把父亲作为左翼分子出卖后，他开始想象父亲的命运。电影充满怪诞的暴力和性，被认为是前卫派的一个宣言，也因无节制的令人不快的镜头而为人责骂。At the end of the Spanish civil war, Fando, a boy of about ten, tries to make sense of war and his father's arrest. His mother is religious, sympathetic to the Fascists; his father is accused of being a Red. Fando discovers that his mother may have aided in his father's arrest. Sometimes we witness Fando imagining explanations for what's going on; sometimes we see him at play, alone or with his friend Thérèse. Oedipal fantasies and a lad's natural curiosity about sex and death mix with his search for his mother's nature and his father's fate. Will Fando survive the search?