City of Women

Snàporaz wakes on a moving train and shares a brief, surreal fling with a mysterious woman in the bathroom. Their encounter ends abruptly when the train stops at Fregene and she disembarks. He follows her off the carriage into the surrounding landscape.

He follows the woman through a forest and arrives at a hotel that seems to be hosting a surreal feminist convention. The place is alive with strange energy as women move about the halls, and Snàporaz becomes a reluctant observer of the spectacle. The moment marks the start of a night of uncanny encounters.

Inside a hotel conference, Snàporaz encounters a discussion about polyandry and is openly rejected by the attendees. The room ridicules him and dismisses his presence, leaving him isolated and confused. The scene sets a tone of social rejection that threads through the night.

Disoriented, he retreats to the hotel lobby but learns the exit is blocked. Donatella appears and guides him into an elevator where she offers help. The confined space becomes a fragile sanctuary amid the hotel’s chaos.

Donatella leads him into a gymnasium and forces him to wear roller skates. A circle of enraged women circles him on skates and practices testicle-kicking on a dummy. The humiliation leaves him dizzy and desperate to escape.

He slips away down a flight of stairs and ends up in the hotel’s furnace area, where a burly woman tends the flames. She offers him a ride to the train station on her motorcycle, but the journey detours to a farm and a nursery where the woman attempts to rape him. They are interrupted by the mother’s intervention, giving Snàporaz a narrow escape.

Escaping, he follows a lonely countryside woman who invites him into her car with several girlfriends. They drive through the night, smoking marijuana and blasting Italo disco as they wander aimlessly. He grows increasingly frustrated and is dropped back into a crowd of pursuing figures.

Seeking shelter, he finds the mansion of Dr. Xavier Katzone and is briefly pursued by his would-be captors. Katzone opens his home to him, but warns that danger is closing in as a squad of pursuers circles the property. He then fires at the attackers, giving Snàporaz a momentary reprieve.

Inside the mansion, Snàporaz wanders rooms filled with sexual imagery and phallic sculptures. He discovers a wall of photographs recounting Katzone’s conquests, which light up and whisper arousing dialogue. He is both impressed and unsettled by Katzone’s vanity and ingenuity.

The party commemorates Katzone’s 10,000th conquest with a grand spectacle: candles are blown out in a fevered cascade and his wife performs a telekinetic routine to pull coins and pearls into her vagina. The surreal celebration hums with bizarre sensuality as the guests mingle. Snàporaz navigates the chaos with a mix of fascination and discomfort.

During the festivities Snàporaz unexpectedly encounters his ex-wife Elena and crosses paths with Donatella again. An alcohol-fueled argument erupts between him and Elena while Donatella lingers nearby. The tension undercuts the party’s gloss and heightens the film’s feverish mood.

The police, composed of women dressed in Nazi attire, crash the party and threaten demolition of Katzone’s house. They reveal they have shot his beloved dog, Italo, leaving Katzone in grief as he buries the animal. The party abruptly shifts from revelry to menace.

Snàporaz drifts into a fever dream where he dances with Donatella and a friend. He slides through a surreal childhood montage and is judged in a bizarre court for his masculinity. He climbs a boxing ring, boards a hot-air balloon shaped like Donatella, and is shot down by Donatella herself, sending him plummeting.

He wakes up on the same train, believing the entire sequence was a nightmare. Elena sits across from him, and the mysterious woman and Donatella walk in and take seats nearby, sharing knowing smiles. The train races into a tunnel as the glasses on his face remain broken, merging dream and reality.