Au XVIIIe siècle, un marchand de papier tombe amoureux de Koharu, une courtisane, mais ne peut se permettre de la racheter. Son épouse demande à Koharu de le quitter pour préserver son couple.
Un couple de retraités, les Bouin, habite en banlieue parisienne (à Courbevoie) dans les années 1970, en plein bouleversement du fait des travaux d'urbanisme moderne d'alors. Julien Bouin est un ancien ouvrier typographe ; sa femme, Clémence Bouin, est une ancienne trapéziste de cirque dont la carrière s'est terminée trop tôt en raison d'une chute lors d'un spectacle. Ils n'ont jamais eu d'enfants.
Tom Latham enjoys riding his motorcycle with his girlfriend and loves his mother, but he is no ordinary fellow. He is an amiable teen psychopath, clearly modeled on Alex of A Clockwork Orange fame. Like Alex, he has an unusual pet (a frog) and a distinctive catch phrase, "hello, little green friend."
The two lead characters appear as the robotic forms of Daft Punk and are credited as "Hero Robot No. 1" and "Hero Robot No. 2". One wears a silver helmet and the other wears a golden one. An opening scene shows the duo driving in a 1987 Ferrari 412 with its license plate displaying "HUMAN". After passing through a Southwestern United States landscape, the duo arrives by car at a town in Inyo County, California. The town's resident are also shown to be robots physically identical to the two main characters, but at different ages, with different clothing and alternating gender.
Gowan McGland (Tom Conti) is a creatively blocked Scottish poet who ekes out a day-to-day existence by exploiting the generosity of strangers in an affluent Connecticut suburb, where he recites his verse to various arts groups and women's clubs. Gowan is something of a leech, cadging expensive dinners from well-off patrons (usually stealing the tips afterward) while seducing their bored wives and affecting a superior attitude toward the smug bourgeois types he exploits.
Alfred Redl, a Ruthenian boy from Galicia in the Austria- Hungary Empire, wins an appointment to a prestigious military academy in spite of being the son of a mere peasant farmer. At his departure from home, his mother installs in him eternal gratitude towards the Emperor Franz Josef. Redl is never to forget that he owes to the emperor his promising career.
Les Flandres, au milieu du XVIe siècle. Sébastien Theus, médecin alchimiste, dont le véritable nom est Zénon, revient clandestinement à Bruges, sa ville natale. Malgré de puissants protecteurs - dont le Prieur des Cordeliers - Zénon, recherché depuis longtemps pour dissidence et écrits subversifs, va être arrêté, jugé et condamné au bûcher.
Greta (Hilary Duff) is seventeen, a bright and beautiful young woman. However, she is also rebellious as a consequence of her turbulent home life. Pushed aside by her mother, Karen (Melissa Leo), who is on her third marriage, Greta is shipped off to her grandparents for the summer. She is not happy about it and neither are her grandparents. She tells them that she fully intends to kill herself before the summer is over and compiles a notebook of suicide methods.
The film is divided into three parts. The first two, 1987 and 1988, each depict a day in the family's life, showing their daily activities in detail. It conveys their discomfort with the sterile routines of modern society. Toward the beginning of each part, there is a voice over of the wife reading a letter to the husband's parents informing them of his success at work. Many of the same activities are shown in both parts.
Monday
A man comes home, phones his boss to resign from his job, writes mysterious letters, cleans his apartment and swallows poison in his bathtub. His death is simultaneous with the death of his fish, the only being that was close to him.
In the near future, a deadly epidemic is infecting people throughout West Berlin, leading to people taking their own lives to avoid catching it. All the media reports seem like unusual propaganda. No one knows what to do or how to help, except for one police officer who suspects that the suicides are really caused by a lone madman. His investigations lead him to a beautiful, enigmatic woman and the revelation of a sinister plot to manipulate the population through mass hypnosis.
Il raconte l'histoire de Louis, un enfant de 12 ans qui vit avec son grand frère et ses parents à Sidi Ifni, une petite ville du sud du Maroc au bord de l'océan. C'est un enfant heureux jusqu'au jour où son père maniaco-dépressif l'appelle dans son bureau pour lui révéler un secret, son intention de s'oter la vie, qui le bouleversera. Le secret est révélé dans les premières minutes. L'enfant ne le partagera avec personne et le portera jusqu'à la fin. La gaité du début fait place à l'angoisse comme dans le poème des Fleurs du mal (Baudelaire), le fil conducteur du film. Ange plein de gaieté, connaissez-vous l'angoisse, La honte, les remords, les sanglots, les ennuis,Et les vagues terreurs de ces affreuses nuits Qui compriment le cœur comme un papier qu'on froisse? Ange plein de gaieté, connaissez-vous l'angoisse?.
Barbara et Henri organisent une fête à laquelle sont conviés d'anciens camarades signataires de pétitions. Parmi les invités se trouve Stan, l'ex-mari de Barbara, émigré polonais comme elle. Stan fuit vite l'ennui de cette fête d'anciens combattants et se réfugie dans la chambre de bonne délabrée de ses hôtes. En voulant changer une ampoule grillée, il provoque une véritable catastrophe et ses amis, alertés par le bruit, le retrouvent à terre entortillé dans les fils électriques. Tous croient à une tentative de suicide...