In the late 1950s, British police officer Tony Aaron resigns from the force after sleeping with Hazel, wife of the man whose house he was supposed to guard.
The tumultuous life of the controversial 1960s black revolutionary (and convicted murderer) Michael X is illustrated by a kaleidoscopic melding of sound and images.
Carmen, a journalist with two children, is on her third marriage, to Antonio, a record producer. Over the course of a year, we follow her through her discontents: Antonio's lateness, his fatigue when she wants to make love, his insistence on her company when she prefers solitude, his treating her work as less important than his, his casual and cruel dismissal of her opinions, her boss assigning her an incompetent editor, bartenders ignoring her, her passage into middle age.
Three friends growing up in South Central Los Angeles navigate a neighborhood plagued by violence, unemployment, and crime, each responding differently to the harsh realities of street life.