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".
他电影里的女性角色永远如此鲜活。历史和未来的连接，个人与社会的对应，被嵌在一个依旧狗血离奇的故事里。剧情发展缺乏新意，但在影院观看时依然非常享受。为Penelope Cruz的演出加了一星。
1+1＜1 虽然两条线是有“血缘”共同母题，但放在一起讲感觉很怪，同性+母爱的感情“合剂”小插曲挺亮眼，结尾画面还算震撼。
影片在前面2/3的大部分时间里观感都是极其舒服的，这不仅仅是体现在多年如一的阿莫多瓦的语言文本的精巧和生活构图的精致上，也是在于他把“抱错小孩”这种抓马戏份给处理的恰到好处，没有狗血，直到他慢慢的让历史伤疤这条暗线与母亲这条主线合并时，一种不协调的剥离感就会逐渐凸显。而这也是影片最被诟病的地方。看得出来他的想法是很美妙的，母亲不就是既指这两位现实的母亲，也暗指西班牙这位母亲么？那么平行就达到了时间和空间上的照应，因此二者的结合虽然突兀，但不妨碍这个最终的落脚点是令人信服接受的。
另一面表现因为内乱导致乱葬坟的事件 但该电影不好的一点是虽然剧情上两个故事有链接 但是主题是不相干的 导致前后比较分裂 同时两个母亲的主题也没有很好的收尾 之后直接转入另一个事件 这相当于把两个电影合在一起
不少人评论说阿莫多瓦差了一点，在性别上也回归了异性恋，也没有处理好两个女人的关系发展，把历史介入也讲的不够有穿透力。而我要说的是，阿莫多瓦本来就不是表明什么特定的意识形态立场，也不是什么控诉社会和历史的作者，他的风格总是站在对人类关系的想象力中给予每个人一种平等的机会，关注的是人，而不是什么特殊的性别。再说回对历史批判的表现力，我觉得阿莫多瓦反而创造了一个哲学性的空间，一个更广泛的角度来思考人类，性别，和历史之间的某种平行关系，这样的作品是有丰富的旨趣的，并且给观众多种眼光看待自身经验。伟大的艺术总是用来触摸宇宙和心灵。
一个想要包涵西班牙血腥历史的雄心勃勃故事，可以被阿莫多瓦拍成这样，你就知道一个好的导演艺术家没有什么是做不到的，只要他有表达的冲动，他就有艺术的角度和巧思。女主角佩内洛普·克鲁兹奉献了充满血肉却又令人心碎的母亲形象，她的孩子被抱错了，又猝死了，而她怀中婴儿的母亲是个未成年的少女，她又爱上了她，这复杂纠葛的关系如此令人震惊，在片中却能如此顺理成章，使人陷入情爱和母爱双重折磨之中。这失去孩子的母亲，大概也象征着失去了一段血腥历史的真正的西班牙，而那个未成年母亲的残缺处，则意味着她就是那遗忘历史的新时代的人间化身。阿莫多瓦在人与人的关系与情绪的表达上已经到达大巧若拙的境界，看着平铺直叙，其实全是了不起的掌控力。它虽没有《痛苦与荣耀》般摧心，但小情感和大情感结合能做到如此百折千回真是腕力不凡。
过时又死板的平庸谍战片，09年出原著11年立项改编足10年后才拍摄注定要挂。如同李安双子杀手高投入低成片，又搭上无能制片团队，一众制片拖后腿（李安情况更惨），更不巧撞正疫情爆发，还陷入拍摄地狱，跨国谍战则更难，似碟中谍78分拆又多次停机重开，本片也是波折不少，延期开机、跨国拍摄受限、剧组感染又反复感染，导致费用推高到网飞电影最高纪录，但钱多却无能无效。主因是主制片Joe Roth的表现大片平庸，如他负责怪医杜立德、魔女2，导演编剧即使是全球最高票房的四人组，塞入动作和刺激场景仍敌不过网飞无能制片和大数据分析，四人组脱离成功的漫威方程式后，与网飞的影视数据方程式明显不合，导致故事显现出上世纪的笨拙又老土，剪辑混乱，浪费一众主演，尤其是两个主演更是又土又油。
4.5，很动人，但背景乐诡异，总以为什么可怕的事情要发生了。阿莫多瓦审美一如既往，家装、服饰、演员，美。正在听Janis Joplin
罗素兄弟老家Cinematheque免费首映，谢谢，但我更应该呆在家里看Solaris。整个片子看下来我实在是坐立不安，当你打开手机就能看到当下战争的实时动态，你很难冷静的看完这几个中情局哈佛帮的老同学派雇佣兵全世界大搞破坏到最后却要惊呼：How can you kill a little girl? 在这个Gun violence频频出现的夏天，这难道就是观众最希望看到的电影？而且罗素兄弟你们确定小女孩儿和高斯林这条线没什么伦理问题？我估计喜欢打游戏的人会很喜欢这种电影。总体来说，我不推荐。
真情实感的平行母亲。
一直在给人出题，要不要换小孩，变成要不要告诉她，之后再怎么办。想起来是枝裕和的一部电影，同样是抱错了孩子，但是枝裕和让爱大于了血缘，这部电影里，血缘不由分说地直接占据了第一位，与安葬祖先这个主题也关联甚为紧密；我的伤痛不需要你告诉我过去了。
私人的抑或是国家的，女性都在书写温暖治愈的历史。
继Spencer瘫突然被Sally表白看懵我后又被这片潘突然被小女主亲吓倒。。。I would like to call them lesbians jump scare.
快五十的penelope还是如此迷人！
寻根线开头结尾 中间故事情节好 但总觉得和头尾的关系很生硬…
#NYFF59 你可以永远相信阿莫多瓦。是他电影里相对轻松和欢乐的一部，很好看，节奏流畅，温情向。虽然不想他别的电影一样流露出很多痛苦，当一部喜剧片看确实很不错。
普普通通的一部阿莫多瓦。故事狗血，每个转折都猜到了，结局突兀。角色好蠢。但到也不难看，Penelope演得好，衣服都很美，我觉得这部是她的颜值巅峰
一度想弃，但谁叫情绪原因看到加莱亚诺history is not mute一个泪水大漫溢。电脑屏幕上的鉴定文档和弗朗哥独裁时期的乱坟岗，生的溯源和死的追认，通过一名女性的生活而落地（呱呱坠地）。/骸骨与“大地之母”
熟悉的阿莫多瓦，熟悉的莫兰迪，熟悉的女性主题…全片只有一个男性人物。但串联起历史变迁下对女性主义延续性和存在性的赞扬。失败的地方是剧情的割裂，孩子和考古像是在看两部电影。
在导演这里，似乎男人才是生育工具，提供颗精子就可以消失了，像抚养这种事只靠单亲妈妈就可以完成。
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