Martin (John Amplas), a young man who looks around 20-years-old, boards a train in Indianapolis, Indiana for New York. At night, he breaks into a sleeping car and sedates a woman with a syringe full of narcotics. She struggles, but he tells her not to struggle or be upset because she wont feel pain. After a few minutes, the woman falls asleep, and Martin has sex with the unconscious woman. Afterwards, he slices her wrists with a razor blade so he can drink her blood. The woman bleeds to death in her sleep.
In the morning, the train stops in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where Martin disembarks. He is met by Tata Cuda (Lincoln Maazel) an elderly and hostile old man who claims to be his cousin from the Old World. Together, they travel by another train to the town of Braddock, a dying industrial suburb. They walk to Cuda's large house where he shows Martin his living quarters. Cuda then accuses Martin of being an 84-year-old vampire from his old country. He has taken in Martin because he is family, but tells him, "First I will save your soul. Then I shall destroy you." Martin denies being a vampire and implies that Cuda is merely his uncle rather than his cousin. Cuda then puts up strings of garlic on the doors to his and his granddaughter's room, and then holds up a small cross when Martin approaches him. Martin takes away the cross, and even takes a bite of the garlic mocking these attempts by saying bitterly, "There's no real magic... ever". Cuda tells Martin that he can come and go as he pleases. But he also warns Martin that he will kill him if he kills anyone in Braddock. He also tells Martin to stay away from his granddaughter Christine (Christine Forrest), whom arrives home from her job that evening.
Cuda introduces Christine to Martin, but also warns her to stay away from him. But Christine instead strikes up a friendship with Martin who confides in her about his vampire heritage. When Cuda later confirms Martin's claims to be a vampire, Christine, not surprisingly, refuses to believe either one. She thinks that Cuda and the other members of her family have driven Martin to insanity by making him think that he is a vampire. It is never revealed if Martin really is a vampire, or just a shy and lonely youth with troubled issues. Christine is the only person that Martin gets the courage to talk to. When Christine's boyfriend Arthur (Tom Savini) arrives at the house for dinner, Martin stops talking and backs away despite Arthur's attempt at a conversation. Christine later confides in Martin that she hopes to leave Braddock someday with Arthur, even though Martin points out that Arthur treats her badly and is both verbally and physically abusive towards her.
When Christine sees that Martin won't talk to anyone else, she buys him a phone which he installs in his room. Martin begins to repeatingly call a radio talk show where he describes what it's like to be a vampire. He becomes known on the radio as "the Count" to all the listeners. But the patronizing host (Michael Gornick) thinks he's just crazy.
Martin gets a job at Cuda's grocery store of stocking shelves, hauling boxes around, and even gets to be a delivery boy for some of the customers. One of his customers is a certain Abby Santini (Elyane Nadeau), who becomes taken in with Martin. She is a very friendly young woman who is depressed when she tells Martin that her husband is unfaithful. But Martin still does not have the nerve to talk with her, so she is happy to have someone to confide in with her life problems. Martin phones the radio show host to describe his infatuation with the housewife and senses that she wants to have sex with him. When the radio show host asks Martin if it is a sexual problem that he has involving women criticizing him during sex, Martin replies that he has never had sex with a woman who was awake.
One day, Martin travels by train to outside Braddock to look for victims. At a supermarket, he follows a young woman (Sarah Venable) home to her posh suburban house. He sees the woman's husband (Richard Rubenstein) leave for a long business trip, and Martin decides this would be the right time for more feeding. Martin returns to the house after dark and breaks in through the garage door. But it is Martin who gets the surprise when he bursts into her bedroom to find her in bed with her adulterous lover Lewis (Al Levitsky). After a vicious struggle, Martin jabs both of them with hyprodermic needles with narcotics, and waits for the drugs to take affect. He drags the unconscious body of Lewis from the house to a clump of trees across the street where he kills him by shoving a broken tree branch into his neck and drinks his blood. Martin returns to the house where he has sex with the unconscious woman. But out of compassion and pity, he decides to let her live.
Martin begins to have romantic monochrome visions of his vampire past (real or imagined), where he drained blood from a young woman and was chased through the streets of a nameless European town by a torch-lit mob.
During one Sunday at church, Cuda brings home Father Howard (George A. Romero) who asks him about the possibility of exorcism and demon possession. Father Howard calls upon the elderly Father Zulemans (Clifford Forrest, Jr.) over at Cuda's request. Together, Cuda and Zulemans confront Martin his bedroom and attempt to perform an exorcism on him. At this point, Martin remembers (another real or imaginary flashback), in the Old Country of people trying to perform an exorcism on him, and he flees them. Martin then flees from Cuda and Zuelmas as well. A little later that night, Martin terrorizes Cuda in a children's playground when he puts on a Dracula cape and puts false fangs into his mouth to pretend that he really is a vampire.
One day, Martin finally musters the courage to talk with Mrs. Santini during a routine delivery to her house where he tells her that he's aware of her attempts to seduce him and wants now to have sex with her. After having sex for the first time, Mrs. Santini becomes more depressed for she tells Martin that her husband just left her because she discovered that she cannot bear children, and that her desires towards him are based on sex and nothing else. But Martin wants to stay with her and help her move on with her life. Martin tells the radio show host about his affair with the housewife and that he no longer has the urge to attack other women.
Meanwhile, Arthur meets with Cuda and tells him that he wants Christine to leave town with him so they can get married and start a family. But Christine becomes angry at Cuda when he tells Arthur that insanity runs in their family and he shouldn't consider having children with her. Shortly afterwards, Christine packs up and leaves Braddock for New York with Arthur despite Martin telling her that Arthur is abusive towards her. But her mind is made up. Before leaving, Christine tells Martin that she really has no ill feelings towards him and just wants to make a fresh start with her life. She says goodbye to him and promises to write. But Martin knows that with an abusive and possessive man in Christine's life, she probably won't.
Depressed over losing his one true friend, Martin phones the radio show host and tells him that he's getting "shaky" and wants to go out looking for more victims. That night, Martin travels to a rough crime-ridden area of Pittsburgh and attacks two derelicts in a alley, injecting them with narcotics. He kills one of them by silting the bum's wrist and drinking his blood. Martin is about to kill the second one when a police car shows up and gives chase. Martin narrowly escapes during a long chase on foot which leads from the garbage strew streets and through a local store. Martin runs into an old warehouse where a drug deal is going down. A shootout between the two cops and the three thugs begins where all of them are killed, leaving Martin as the sole survivor who casually walks away from the carnage.
One day, Martin finds Mrs. Santini dead in her bathtub, after she had slit her writs with a razor blade. Martin anonymously calls the police to report the body and leaves. He phones the radio show host one final time to say that he really doesn't need friends or people to talk to for he is his own person. But when Cuda learns about Mrs. Santini's suicide, is mistakenly thinks Martin killed her and made it look like a suicide as he's done before. Cuda walks into Martin's room while he is asleep and kills him by hammering a wooden stake through Martin's heart.
Cuda buries Martin's body in his back garden, while over the closing credits various voices from people are heard talking to the radio show host asking the whereabouts of "the Count".
从两位母亲之间的真相还原与历史真相的还原形成“平行” 但总感觉这样的呼应有些勉强了 并不是所有时代的大事件都可以聚焦到小人物身上很好的进行表达 还有莫名其妙的lgbtq情节
不是最好的阿尔莫多瓦，但Penélope Cruz的表演一如即往地，绝。一个充满韧性的承载痛苦的容器，这个威尼斯影后真的实至名归。三代单身母亲，从战争埋葬丈夫，到追逐演员梦抛弃丈夫，再到自愿选择不介入他人家庭而单身生育，女性再次作为个体与历史创伤的载体。
导演想在一部片子里塞进太多东西了，反而有种割裂的感觉，抱错孩子、同性关系、两性关系、战争与真相，太多要素强行关联在了一起，有点可惜了两位女主的精湛演技。
【3】阿莫多瓦终于将他的广告片美学发挥到极致，带来了前所未有的软硬广植入，主人公们在LV、Miu Miu和Dior组成的高级时装衣橱里游离，煞有介事地在陈词滥调里挖掘尘封已久的历史或政治阴云。创作动机已经非常明晰了，奈何议题与情节的组织失效，了无生机，但对情感的勾勒仍然足够。她最终没能成为人民的“母亲”，亲近土地也许已是能想到的最好方式。
阿莫多瓦令人敬佩的地方在于不断添加意义，技法更纯熟更subtle
“那一晚他为什么没有逃走”“也许是为了妻儿，也许是为了荣耀和尊严”
整体的衔接转折有点突兀；加莱亚诺的那句话值一颗星。
很神奇的首尾和中间主题不一致的影片，但阿莫多瓦总能将女性拍得如此美丽，展现她们的脆弱与坚强。
结局是怎么突然升华了的？有点莫名其妙 里面同性情节描写还比较细腻
bytowne看的，现在还在回味影片一开始和结尾挖掘的意义在哪里。回忆的片段和剪辑的确很好。有余香。
导演想在一部片子里塞进太多东西了，反而有种割裂的感觉，抱错孩子、同性关系、两性关系、战争与真相，太多要素强行关联在了一起，有点可惜了两位女主的精湛演技。
Histoire un peu trop prévisible, malgré l'évocation de plusieurs sujets de réflexion. Néanmoins, il n'y a que dans un film d'Almodóvar que les femmes sont belles même si elles sont moches...
Madres.Paralelas.2021.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP5.1.H.264-gattopollo
挑明真相后，仅存的一点戏剧张力即刻土崩瓦解……最后的摆拍大可不必
两个主题未免太不搭了，母亲的戏份算得上伤痛后的相拥取暖，可是轻描淡写，没有任何情绪，也并不细腻。历史的戏份简直是加塞的，生硬得像电影里那些植入广告一样，就好像导演一看时间快到了，赶紧带人出来缅怀一下，升华意义。但是，风马牛不相及。
看似不关联的全都是生活的关联，所有的未来都与所有的过去有关。
这些netflix巨制就像华丽的糖纸包着最廉价的巧克力，如果本身就是小打小闹可能还看不出来，一试图做大就各种露怯，从历史的角度来看的话，希望还是活不长久的。希望高司令多多出演动作片！
大家说割裂，我倒觉得是相当艺术的做法，概念分配得很好，可能是因为形式上还是老做法所以显得割裂吧
平行的题眼之下，真正的命题是错位，无论是因命运捉弄而联结的掉包母亲，还是被历史创痛遮蔽又牵引的血缘记忆，唯有正视错位、直面伤害，才会存在微弱却未必无法实现的弥合与重建的可能。此刻的狗血奇情与历史的亡灵追索并没有统一在一个语境之内，而且虽然奇情部分在套路主线下仍展示了阿莫多瓦化狗血于真切的功力，历史部分在结尾也呈现出了某种悲怆和庄严，但两者各自实现的程度相比导演那些代表作还是过于平面化和概念化，缺乏真正打动和刺痛人的东西。三星半
阿莫多瓦特有的女性主义气息，将女性命运与西班牙民族历史相结合。影片整体质量比较一般，属于导演平均水准之下的作品。佩内洛普的表演很棒，看好她继威尼斯之后拿下学院的影后
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