What do you do if you are a reporter with a deadline and you are going blind? This French drama answers that question. Arnold is a crack television reporter assigned to cover an uprising in northern Sri Lanka. Recently he has suffered great headaches and his eyes have been tired. Before leaving he has a doctor check him and is appalled by the diagnosis that he is going blind. If he goes to Sri Lanka, the stress could hasten his loss of sight. If he does not go, he will lose the assignment to a rival reporter. Instead of going, he locks himself in his Paris apartment and creates the documentary from a combination of new and old video footage. He suffers through many emotional outbursts in the process. The highlight of his video is a scene in which he, using complex computer-work, "inserts" himself into Sri-Lankan street situation. Though the documentary is excellent, Arnold is crushed when his editor demands the scene be deleted from the film because it slows the film down.
Elle (Isabelle Gélinas) wants to make a film about African wildlife. Adrien (Eric Métayer) is obsessed with the idea of making love to Elle in a very peculiar and theatrical imaginary bedroom. Perhaps following a principle of sympathetic magic, he arranges for a crew of eccentric friends to help create the bedroom of his dreams. If one part of his dream comes true, perhaps the other one will.
Force Majeure (Uncontrollable Circumstances) begins with a drug deal involving tourists Phillipe (Patrick Bruel) and Daniel (Francois Cluzet), and a Dutch stranger. Two years pass: the Dutchman has been arrested in an unspecified Asian country, where the penalty for drug trafficking is death. Phillipe and Daniel agree to admit that the hashish partly belongs to them, which will reduce the Dutchman's sentence, but also subject the twosome to a prison sentence themselves. Malcolm Forrest (Alan Bates), a representative of Amnesty International, does what he can to aid all three of the unfortunate young men. Force Majeure was co-written by Michele De Broca, wife of director Philippe De Broca.
Loïc, a chestnut seller, has a mistress who wants a baby. Not daring to admit to her that he had the mumps late in life, he finds other excuses. Until the day he meets Claire, an old girlfriend, who has a little boy. Loïc finds the resemblance between the little boy and himself enormous and is convinced that he is his father...
Gerard has just lost his job and his marital life is falling apart. He accidentally falls off a bridge and meets Sarah who believes he wanted to commit suicide.
