A fine synopsis: ‘The descent into hell of a small man who is going to use his delightful instrument of virility to hoist himself into the world of big people. Only children, on a lovely summer day, well sense through this profusion of debauchery, that one of them has merged among the other people.’Lucien Lhotte (Jean-Yves Thual) is in his thirties and works as a clerk in an old-fashioned lawyer’s office. As a dwarf, he is often the victim of harassment by his colleagues and finds the abusive letters in divorce cases on his desk. He has not managed to find a wife. He finds consolation in his grey existence at the circus, where the girl Isis is a trapeze artiste. During a visit to baroness Paola Bendoni (Anita Ekberg), a customer who is having her umpteenth divorce, he falls for her charms, discovers the pleasures of sex and also the advantages of his own extravagance. But when the baroness elects to stay with her husband, things get out of hand. There is only one way out for him, and coincidentally for the husband too: the circus. There he finds a job as a clown – he is, after all, a dwarf.The film, shot in lucid black & white by cameraman Danny Elsen, is loosely based on a short story by Michel Tournier and evokes memories of the work of Fellini, if only because of Anita Ekberg and the major role of the circus.
