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Crown Prince Rudolf, Emperor Franz Josef of Austria's son, is thought to have shot his female lover and himself in a tragic suicide pact in Mayerling in 1882. Because of Imperial cover-ups, the full story may never be known. This story has been filmed several times, first in French in 1935 and then in English in 1968. Miklos Jancso, a Hungarian director, recreates those events for his own purposes, continuing his favorite theme of the rejection of paternal authority. Rudolf is a good-natured pan-sexual golden boy in the film, which has very little dialogue, who cavorts on his rural estate with a slew of beautiful, aristocratic lovers and friends of both sexes. Even though the Emperor, his father, has ordered him to leave his idyllic country, he refuses. Despite the fact that attractive young people go about unclothed and engaging in erotic encounters for the majority of the film, the mood is one of melancholy rather than prurience.