Christiane Krüger

At the turn of the century on Prince Edward Island, Matthew Cuthbert and his sister Marilla decide to take on an orphan boy as help for their farm. But they get an unexpected jolt when they're mistakenly sent a girl instead: Anne Shirley.

The plot explores the devastation of civilization and issues of brutality, hostility and isolation. Pierre Jolivet stars as the main character (identified only as "The Man" in the end credits) who is menaced by "The Brute" (played by Jean Reno) on his journey through a world filled by people rendered nearly mute by some unknown incident.

Offered a job as a presidential adviser, a professor is forced to dispose of those who knew him when he was a spy.

The 18th-century French marquis recalls his sadomasochistic experiments and goes to jail for lewd behavior.

After a businessman's unfaithful wife is seemingly killed in a car accident, he is led by several unscrupulous characters to believe that she is actually alive.

A man is found dead in a London hotel. The knife is still firmly stuck in the victim's chest, and Inspector Perkins strangely finds a glass eye in his jacket pocket. Kurt after that a second, mysterious murder happens: A city-famous dancer of the Las Vegas Girls, who perform at the London Odeon Theater, is poisoned. Is there a connection between the pretty dancer and the hotel guest? Inspector Perkins and his colleagues are pressed for time. The "man with the glass eye" strikes deadly again and again. A first clue leads Scotland Yard to a billiard club, where one has to show a glass eye as an admission ticket.

Anna and Michael have tried everything to conceive a baby - without success. There is one last attempt: surrogacy. Their doctor and friend Peter sees Maria from Russia as the ideal candidate. She is willing to carry the child for them. A lucky coincidence, especially as Michael has to produce a successor within a year in order to take over his uncle's company. Anna fools everyone into believing she is pregnant - with disastrous consequences.

The crimes and tragedies that tear apart one family seem overblown in the telling, yet this psychological drama about the miseries of one French policeman is compelling throughout. Jean (Pierre Arditi) is a cop and also a failed novelist who was abandoned by his father, brother, and sister after his mother died. The trio move to Paris where they set up an art scam that nets them considerable cash -- something Jean begins to figure out when he joins them for a family reunion. Little by little, he learns that his father is an expert forger, his stepmother's art gallery seems to be involved in the scam, his brother is a derelict and into drugs, his stepmother is a hooker in addition to all of this, and his sister runs an exercise gym for keeping prostitutes in shape. Things get worse -- just when everything seems bad enough, the stepmother is murdered and it is up to Jean to find the killer.