When Harald, the patriarch of a high society family, can no longer pay the bills, he conspires to bump off his harmlessly mad daughter Livia, the heir to his wife’s vast fortune. To accomplish the deed, he arranges for the escape of Emil, a psychotic killer who has been confined in a nearby asylum.

One of our very favorite modern directors, Chilean exile and master surrealist Raúl Ruiz had a critical hit at Sundance and Cannes with this magical black comedy about greed, innocence and the thin line separating madness from sanity. Ruiz’s film is pure farce, even as the bodies pile up.