It is Paris, just after the end of the First World War. The reclusive writer Marcel Proust (Marcello Mazzarella) remembers his childhood & muses on the nature of time & memory. As he becomes increasingly absorbed in his art, the boundaries between reality & fiction begin to blur, & he becomes involved with many fantastic characters, such as the Baron de Charlus (John Malkovich), his sometime lover Charlie Morel (Vincent Perez), wartime veteran Robert de Saint-Loup (Pascal Greggory) & his wife Gilberte (Emmanuelle Beart)...