A selection of seemingly unconnected scenes featuring Nick Cave, Blixa Bargeld, Nina Hagen and Lene Lovich. Losely based on Voltaire's satire "Candide".

A theatrical group prepare Voltaire’s play “Alzire”. From this the ideas of Voltaire are examined as they relate to the present day political situation.

Voltaire, a 16th century author was furious that learned members of a "civilized" society could claim that the apparent senseless violence and mayhem wrought by disasters, war, disease, man's cruelty, etc. was actually only a part of some 'greater good'. After all, God (being perfect) could not 'logically' have created anything but the 'best of all possible' universes.

In order to inherit a fortune a young woman agrees to marry a young man. She soon discovers that his family harbours a dark past involving a monstrous beast.

The film is a 20th-century adaptation of Voltaire's 1759 social satire novel Candide, ou l’Optimisme.

Writer and philosopher Voltaire, loyal to his king, Louis XV of France, nonetheless writes scathingly of the king's disdain for the rights and needs of his people. Louis admires Voltaire, but is increasingly influenced against him by his minister, the Count de Sarnac.