이탈리아 토스카나에서 휴가를 보내던 덴마크에서 온 ‘비외른’과 아내 ‘루이세’, 딸 ‘아그네스’ 가족은 우연히 네덜란드에서 온 ‘패트릭’과 그의 아내 ‘카린’, 아들 ‘아벨’ 가족을 만나 함께 휴가를 즐기게 된다. 일상으로 돌아간 몇 달 후, 아벨 가족이 사는 네덜란드로 초대 받는다. 그러나 재회의 기쁨이 오해로 변하는 데는 그리 오랜 시간이 걸리지 않는다. 비외른과 루이세는 패트릭과 카린이 만든 불쾌한 상황들 앞에서 초대해 준 가족에 대한 예의를 지키려고 노력하지만 점점 통제할 수 없는 상황으로 빠지게 되는데...
1962 is the year when an entire generation lives life as though it was their last day. Young activist Eik Skaløe has his entire life turned upside down when he falls head over heels in love with the beautiful peace activist Iben Nagel Rasmussen, and she falls in love with him. But Iben is a child of the times, and freely accepts the order of the day: free love and sex. She renounces personal right of ownership and will not settle for one man when she can have several. In typically romantic fashion, he begins a struggle to win all of her love. As a poet, writer and singer he constantly confesses his love to her. But Eik must accept defeat, and in 1968 he travels without his beloved Itsi Bitsi to Nepal, the Land of Dreams in the East. A journey from which he will never return.
Preston is an indecisive film school lecturer who dreams of being a great film director like the European directors whose work he teaches - Bergman, Fellini, Truffaut, Antonioni, Godard and Buñuel. One day his wife leaves him, telling him that she believes he will never be anything more than a teacher. Depressed, Preston is visited by the ghost of Ingmar Bergman who tells him to use his misery as the material for a great film just as he did in his 'Scenes from a Marriage'. Taking Bergman's advice, Preston decides to make a film, in an attempt to prove his wife wrong and in the hope of winning her back. Using the facilities of the school and the students as his crew, Preston shoots his film but soon finds that he is visited by the ghosts of series of famous, dead European directors who offer him advice on how to improve his film. Following their wise but disparate counsel his film goes wildly out of control and becomes a huge, sprawling, incoherent mess.