The title comes from a quote by Willa Cather: "There are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before." Lelouch's idea of repeating human stories is to have several of his stars portray a character and their child. This includes seeing James Caan and Geraldine Chaplin as both a big band conducter and his singer wife, and popular singer-actress (seen singing in the rain above) and her manager brother. Near the end of the film, Sharon Stone appears briefly as the trophy wife of the aging Caan.

Lelouch attempts to touch on various historic events, reducing the holocaust, the battle of Stalingrad, and the occupation and liberation of France into little five minute vignettes, accompanied by singing and dancing. Some of the scenes were designed to comment on each other, such as a staged "wedding number" against the wedding of two of the characters. Lelouch also tries to link characters with long takes, particularly in one seen with the camera traveling from one end of a train station to another showing concentration camp survivors arriving in Paris while German prisoners of war are departing. About midway through, any attempt at structure seems to be forgotten and the film jumps from one story line to another for no clear reason other than that Lelouch is trying to finish what he started. Maybe it's besides Lelouch's point, but it bothered me that too often the male actors had shaggy hair styles that were not modified for playing World War II era characters. At one point characters are in a musical number that recaps various points in the narrative.

A more successful Lelouch film is And Now My Love which switches between two characters who seem to exist independently of each other until the big payoff at the end when they meet. Lelouch never really has a lot to say, and has often repeated his messages from film to film. The title almost seems like the filmmaker's justification for a career of films that are frequently self-referential.