Throughout a total of 278 minutes - not one of which is boring - Lars von Trier examines the uncanny Copenhagen University Hospital and its subconscious. Its many characters include: a homesick Swedish doctor who has an affair with the head nurse and has a (blackmailable) malpractice case on his conscience; a grim pathologist who even performs auto-operative surgery to safeguard his favourite carcinoma; a clever ward physician who collects severed heads in his fridge. But their everyday lives are disarranged by an elderly lady: a passionate malingerer who entertains séances with other patients and is wheeled through the corridors in a quest for the unresting spirit of a girl murdered decades ago. When she finally swings a cricket bat in exorcism, the madness is complete at the Royal Danish University Hospital.