It's the first time Adrien is entering a homosexual sauna. In the space of one night, he discovers this microcosm where the comic aspect of the individual tragedies encounters the passing of time and where hope mingles with melancholy.
A family spends three summer days in a beautiful lake mansion close to Berlin. Together with her new lover, Irene visits her brother Alex, who still inhabits the house with Irene's writer son Konstantin. Konstantin's girl-friend pops in, too, and all of them drift away from each other more and more.
Although his alcoholism has been treated, Alain still feels he is deeply unwell and does not feel he can leave the detoxification clinic once and for all. His wife, living in New York, continues to pay for his treatment, but no longer contacts him directly. He intends to commit suicide, but first takes a ride to Paris to catch up with old friends.
Praxis peels away the layers of narrative even as Brian, the film's axis, struggles to create his true self. Brian, a writer on the verge of a breakdown, is aided by Joe and an Elusive Woman as he sifts through the fragments of his persona to discover his true core. Fighting against fear and the indifference of society - aptly symbolized by the medical establishment - his quest reflects the classical mythos of Proteus and the human search for meaning in the universe.
Two lost souls visiting Tokyo -- the young, neglected wife of a photographer and a washed-up movie star shooting a TV commercial -- find an odd solace and pensive freedom to be real in each other's company, away from their lives in America.
Lester Burnham, a depressed suburban father in a mid-life crisis, decides to turn his hectic life around after developing an infatuation with his daughter's attractive friend.
Having recently lost her sight, Ingrid retreats to the safety of her home—a place where she can feel in control, alone with her husband and her thoughts. After a while, Ingrid starts to feel the presence of her husband in the flat when he is supposed to be at work. At the same time, her lonely neighbor who has grown tired of even the most extreme pornography shifts his attention to a woman across the street. Ingrid knows about this but her real problems lie within, not beyond the walls of her apartment, and her deepest fears and repressed fantasies soon take over.
Léon, the top hit man in New York, has earned a rep as an effective "cleaner". But when his next-door neighbors are wiped out by a loose-cannon DEA agent, he becomes the unwilling custodian of 12-year-old Mathilda. Before long, Mathilda's thoughts turn to revenge, and she considers following in Léon's footsteps.
Hunter, a newly pregnant housewife, finds herself increasingly compelled to consume dangerous objects. As her husband and his family tighten their control over her life, she must confront the dark secret behind her new obsession.
What happens when two profoundly lonely men who are strangers, one older and gay, and the second younger and questioning, take one last chance at making a sincere human connection? Based on true events in the life of the writer/director.
With no clue how he came to be imprisoned, drugged and tortured for 15 years, a desperate man seeks revenge on his captors.
Elisabeth leaves her abusive and drunken husband Rolf, and goes to live with her brother, Göran. The year is 1975 and Göran lives in a commune called Together. Living in this leftist commune Elisabeth learns that the world can be viewed from different perspectives.
A penniless middle-aged spinster scrapes by giving piano lessons in the Dublin of the 1950s. She makes a sad last bid for love with a fellow resident of her rundown boarding house, who imagines she has the money to bankroll the business he hopes to open.
Noel is a young man who travels from upstate New York every year to sell Christmas trees in New York City. Returning without the help of his long-time girlfriend, this year Noel finds it impossible to do the one thing he knows so well---sell Christmas trees. As Noel begins to spiral downwards, alienating co-workers and customers in the process, it turns out this same community of people may be the only ones capable of saving Noel from self-destruction.
Matia, a marginal young man, escapes to an island in the River Paraná. In an uncomfortable atmosphere that is not his own, he tries to start a new life, but the tensions his arrival cause take him back to his criminal past and to the idea of having to flee in order to survive.
A constantly freezing man in his forties drives to a lonely petrol station every evening and orders a microwaved Toast Hawaii. Detlev indulges in this in a bizarre ritual, because it's the only thing that warms him in his daily life. But when he is observed by a stranger one night, his world begins to crumble into shameful pieces.
After the death of her father, Little Voice or LV becomes a virtual recluse, never going out and hardly ever saying a word. She just sits in her bedroom listening to her father's collection of old records of Shirley Bassey, Marilyn Monroe and various other famous female singers. But at night time, LV sings, imitating these great singers with surprising accuracy. One night she is overheard by one of her mother's boyfriends, who happens to be a talent agent. He manages to convince her that her talent is special and arranges for her to perform at the local night club, but several problems arise.
The lives of several individuals intertwine as they go about their lives in their own unique ways, engaging in acts which society as a whole might find disturbing in a desperate search for human connection.
A young farmer in rural Yorkshire numbs his daily frustrations with binge drinking and casual sex, until the arrival of a Romanian migrant worker.
Beautiful young manicurist Carole suffers from androphobia (the pathological fear of interaction with men). When her sister and roommate, Helen, leaves their London flat to go on an Italian holiday with her married boyfriend, Carole withdraws into her apartment. She begins to experience frightful hallucinations, her fear gradually mutating into madness.