The titular forces are incarnated in Love and Anarchy's two female protagonists, prostitutes in an elegant brothel in 1930s Rome at the height of the Fascist regime. As a member of the anti-fascist resistance, Salome (Melato) embodies anarchy, the contact for southern peasant Tunin (Giannini) who comes to the big city to assassinate Mussolini as vengeance for a friend's murder by the fascists. While arranging the assassination, Tunin is smitten by the embodiment of Love, Salome's younger, naïve and beautiful colleague Tripolina (Polito). Out of Tunin's contradictory commitments to these two women, and their differing demands of him, Wertmüller fashions a dark and politically astute comedy of the clash between desire and will.