The first of Pasolini's colourful, entertaining and highly erotic Trilogy of Life films based on famous story cycles (to be followed by The Canterbury Tales and Arabian Nights, The Decameron contains ten stories based on the fourteenth century works of Giovanni Boccaccio.
Capturing the bawdy, earthy spirit of the original, the film romps through its tales of sex and death - of lusty nuns and priests, cuckolded husbands, murdered lovers and grave-robbers, with five of the stories linked by an artist, 'Giotto's pupil', played by Pasolini himself.