In a crumbling apartment block in post-apocalyptic France, food is scarce and grain has become a currency of survival. The ground floor hosts a grim butcher’s shop run by the landlord Clapet, a man who screens tenants with newspaper job ads only to murder them for meat, selling it back to those who live in his building. The atmosphere is tense, claustrophobic, and morally rotting, as neighbors hover between fear and dependence on the only source of “food” they can rely on.
Louison, the unemployed circus clown, arrives to apply for the vacant position. Louison, [Dominique Pinon], proves to be an exceptionally capable worker with a spectacular trick knife, and Clapet hesitates to end his life too quickly, entangling them in a tense, wary dynamic. During a routine maintenance period, Louison comes upon a package dropped by a mailman and delivers it to Clapet’s daughter, Julie, [Marie-Laure Dougnac], who claims the package contains confections and invites him to return that evening. A quiet spark grows into a genuine romance between Louison and Julie, even as other tenants watch with a mix of curiosity and concern over the strange, almost magical charm he seems to radiate.
The growing bond unsettles some tenants, who worry that Louison’s presence might endanger them all if their safety—and their meat supply—depends on Clapet’s rule. Clapet warns tenant Marcel Tapioca that his rent is late and that he must surrender his mother-in-law as payment, a brutal reminder of the building’s brutal economy. That night, Julie pleads with her father to release Louison, aware of Clapet’s murderous appetite for tenants. She then discovers a newspaper article about the Troglodistes, a group of vegetarian rebels living underground, and she ventures into the sewers to contact them, hoping they can help rescue Louison.
Following what seems like the butcher’s grim efficiency in disposing of a tenant’s mother-in-law, the Troglodistes infiltrate the sewer network to seize Louison, but their mission goes awry and they accidentally capture Mademoiselle Plusse instead. Meanwhile, Louison and Julie enjoy a quiet moment watching television, as Clapet climbs to the roof and shakes the antenna to lure Louison into a rooftop fix. An attempted kill with a cleaver by Clapet is thwarted by an unexpected electrical explosion that rips through one of the apartments, interrupting the attack.
Clapet, joined by some tenants, storms Louison’s room once more in a bid to murder him. The couple retreats to a bathroom and floods it, wall to wall, in a desperate defense—until Clapet finally opens the door and the rising waters sweep the invaders away. Mademoiselle Plusse, escaping the sewers, finds Louison’s boomerang knife and hands it to Clapet, who hurls it toward Louison but ends up killing himself instead.
With the danger behind them, Louison and Julie ascend to the roof to make music together, the building now quiet and the butcher’s shop closed for good, signaling a fragile, hopeful peace after a harsh and brutal chapter.
