Bacchanalia has merit, in spite of it being easily one of the worst feature length films I have ever watched. Its merit lies in that it's a film that stands as an example for aspiring film-makers who are still learning the ABCs of their craft of what constitutes a badly made film. For an aspiring film-maker with talent and respect for their craft, watching this would be analogous for me, a writer, to read poorly written works so as to see what to avoid incorporating into my own writing.
Bacchanalia was a disjointed mess that consisted largely of seemingly random scenes featuring a bunch of unknown actors (don't quit your day jobs folks) playing characters the viewer cannot empathize with in any way careening toward an ending that didn't make any sense. The opening scene is a huge clue as to what the viewer can expect. Two teens, a boy and a girl, dressed in pagan garb taunt some guy walking through a vineyard holding a machete. Random guy gives up trying to find the teens in the woods, goes into a hut, stares at some unknown substance through a microscope, hears noise, goes outside, sees the teens and then is shot by somebody, presumably a woman as we only see white high heels. As random guy is leaving the hut, there is actually a jerky, choppy, frame by frame movement. If the director's intention was to create some sense of dissonance for the viewer (if however clumsily executed), it simply came across as bad editing.
The apparent connecting theme in this disjointed mess is that there's a substance in the wine at this country estate where all these strangers have gathered for a weekend that makes them want to line dance whenever two fiddlers start playing "Turkey in the Straw". Perhaps I should watch Bacchanalia again when I'm drunk in order to understand the symbolism.
Bacchanalia was written, directed and produced by somebody I'd never heard of. It is an example of yet another terrible movie in a vast body of works that only came about because somebody with money and the deluded belief they have talent decided to make a movie.