Noble Savage explores Jean-Jacques Rousseau's concept of women and indigenous peoples. Based on the idea that word and image viewed together creates metaphor, a third experience that can more powerfully inform viewers than illustration, the mysterious narrator of Noble Savage binds together two asynchronous stories: Jean/Jeanne Baret's experience as the first woman to sail around the world, and the plight of a French journalist who is pushed from a helicopter during the Vietnam War. Sri Lankan and Hawaiian ceremonial footage emphasizes the notion that our deepest beliefs are historically, geographically and psychically connected.