Returning to themes he first explored in La strada (1954), Fellini crafts that a parable on the whisperings of their soul that only madmen and vagabonds are effective at hearing. The odd bunch, Ivo Salvini (Benigni), a bogus inspector of wells, also Gonnella (Villaggio), also a former prefect, wander through the Emilia-Romagna countryside of Fellini's youth and discover a dystopia of television advertisements, fascism, beauty pageants, rock music, Catholicism, along with pagan ritual.