The Milky Way

Pierre and Jean decide to undertake the pilgrimage on foot from Paris to Santiago de Compostela. Along a roadside near Fontainebleau, they meet a caped clergyman who instructs them to have relations with a prostitute as Hosea did and to bear children with her. The encounter foreshadows the film's satirical view of religious authority and its unpredictable moral tests.

The pilgrims reach a roadside inn where a police sergeant, a priest, and a cook debate the nature of the Eucharist and transubstantiation. The discussion unsettles the travelers as staff from a nearby mental hospital take away the priest, suggesting a collapse between faith and madness. The scene underscores the fragility of religious authority in daily life.

That night the pilgrims find shelter on a farm along their route. A secret Priscillianist sect nearby conducts a sexual rite, blending ritualism with taboo acts. The juxtaposition highlights the film's provocative treatment of religious extremism and desire.

The trio unsuccessfully seek food at an expensive restaurant. The manager explains to his staff the controversy over the divinity of Jesus as debated during the First Council of Nicaea. The scene satirizes modern consumer culture clashing with ancient doctrinal disputes.

In Tours, they visit a boarding school and watch the children perform for parents and teachers. A class of young girls recites heresies and proclaims them 'anathema', provoking one pilgrim to imagine anarchists executing the Pope. The scene blends innocence with radical thought and nightmare imagery.

Near Bayonne the pilgrims hitch-hike and curse a car that does not stop, leading to a fatal crash that kills the driver. Investigating the wreckage, they encounter a strange man (perhaps the Angel of Death or the Devil) who gives one pilgrim the dead man's shoes. The moment intensifies the film's sense of fate and mortality.

At a chapel along the way, a group of Jansenist convulsionnaire nuns nail one of their own to a cross. Outside, a Jesuit and a Jansenist duel with swords while arguing over predestination and irresistible grace. The scene satirizes doctrinal conflict within Catholic thought.

In Spain, two new men join the pilgrims and go to an abbey to watch the official desecration of a priest's grave after the posthumous discovery of his heretical writings about the Trinity. They declare that the Godhead is one person and then escape. This sequence amplifies the tension between orthodoxy and dissent.

In a forest, the two men switch clothes with two hunters swimming in a lake and shoot at a rosary found in one of their pockets with the hunters' shotguns. Later, a vision of the Virgin Mary appears to the pair and returns the rosary. The sequence blends physical treasure hunting with miraculous spectacle.

The original pilgrims meet again at an inn, where they recount their recent miraculous vision to a local priest. The priest narrates another miracle in which the Virgin Mary took on the form and served as an errant nun for several years before returning to her convent. The discussion then turns to the dogmas of the Immaculate Conception, the virgin birth, and the Assumption.

On the outskirts of Santiago de Compostela, a prostitute claims the city is empty of pilgrims because the remains are of Priscillian rather than St. James. She wants to become pregnant by the three travelers and repeats the same names predicted by the caped man. They head into the woods to have sex.

Nearby, two blind men encounter Jesus and his disciples. Jesus heals their blindness, but they cannot understand what they see and continue to use their walking sticks. The film closes with this spiritual encounter unresolved, echoing the pilgrims' quest.