Rimbaud's Mother
Young, wild poet Arthur Rimbaud and his mentor Paul Verlaine engage in a fierce, forbidden romance while feeling the effects of a hellish artistic lifestyle.
Drunk, Betty is feeling worse and worse, the previous evening is slowly coming back to her: her husband and her husband's family had criticized her harshly, had sent her away. But Betty hadn't wanted to get married in the first place. She knows that she always ruined everything, that she drinks to much, that she has had several affairs. Laure, who is taking care of her, suggests that Betty stay with her in the hotel where she lives, as long as Betty would like. Laure, too, finds solace and companionship in alcohol.
Mme Kern
A true story shot in a German Impressionistic style. In France during the Nazi occupation, Dr. Petiot (Michel Serrault) offered to help Jews escape the Nazis. They would come to his house, and he would kindly give them lethal "vaccinations" for their anticipated travel to Argentina. Then he would steal everything the brought with them (in addition to their up-front payment to him) and burn their bodies in his home-made crematorium.
Hugo-Paul de Weydroos, forger who manages to mystify the most renowned experts, is an attractive man, not without talent but paranoid and megalomaniac. He lived a childhood in the Paris of the 1920s, upset by his love of drawing and painting thwarted by an abusive mother. Delivered to his own fantasies, the hero indulges in the most disordered introspection and will end up consuming himself to become the reincarnation of the one he is trying to copy: Hans Pauli Weyergans, painter of the 18th century.
Françoise
In the seaside town of Boulogne, no one seems to be able to cope with their past, least of all Hélène, an antique furniture saleswoman, her stepson Bernard, and her former lover Alphonse.