A garish pleasure dome turned private school is the setting for a multilayered fable interweaving three narrative strands and time periods. In its contemporary incarnation the chateau houses a seminar for grade-school teachers on the topic of the imagination which draws some rather offbeat thinkers (Vittorio Gassman, Geraldine Chaplin among them). But its WWI-era builder (opera star Ruggero Raimondi) envisioned other things for this "Temple of Happiness" and for the world. "Happiness. Love. The Perfectibility of Man. Grand Abstractions and Grand Illusions. Education and Imagination. Pedagogical pontifications. They are all targets for an unsettling but comic compote by Resnais (in) collaboration with screenwriter Jean Gruault (Mon Oncle d'Amérique). Resnais has (always) believed that filmmakers have as much right as physicists and astronauts to mess around with time and space. He does it here again....For those who enjoy a little ambiguity and mystery in their fantasies, it's great fun." (Judy Stone, S.F. Chronicle)