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".
很私人化很真挚的故事。但，或许是受限于时长的原因，很多东西都不清不楚的带过去了。母亲这个人物因外部环境的影响而转变略显突兀，原因出在构成外部环境的这场暴乱本身的描写太过欠缺，难以让人信服。比利像个可有可无的角色强盗A或者劫匪B，感觉这场戏和开头的暴乱戏的顺序可以换一换。故事线捋地不清楚，把握不住节奏，继而导致抒情的时候只能见缝插针，
奥斯卡里看到的最值得的一部作品了。
主要打动我的是背井离乡前的哀愁和不舍，我也经历过离开从小熟悉的街区来到一个陌生的地方生活，担心从小一起长大的好友不再联系，担心自己会被这个新地方排斥，担心远离自己家中和蔼可亲的长辈，结果一一应验了，尤其是和长辈一起的点点滴滴实在是让人动容，我相信很多人和我一样都有和爷爷奶奶外公外婆一起度过日常的温馨时光，在父母的疾言厉色下，他们才是幼小的我心中真正的避风港
对这种充满复古风的儿童电影毫无抵抗力，虽然电影只是通过儿童视角在呈现那个年代大人的世界，但是依然充满着活力和童真
That wee girl can be a practicing Hindu or a Southern Baptist or a vegetarian antichrist, but if she's kind and she's fair and you two respect each other, she and her people are welcome in our house any day of the week.
是背景本该不堪但拍得非常甜蜜温馨的私人记忆。爹妈是恩爱俊男靓女有摩擦能和好能携手进退，爷爷奶奶幽默善良大气还能倾听会表达，就算不是这卡司而是素人，也是极理想的家了。/街景的纸板感有点太强。有一瞬间我甚至都觉得很狗镇了。也许可以理解为一种风格吧。/开头结尾、几个观影观剧时刻是彩色，很工整的创意。/今年黑白的真的不少啊。/三星半。
奥斯卡最佳影片提名，温馨的家庭故事，真实的像是纪录片，每个人都有一个难忘的童年，一个怀念的家乡
看的时候我其实不知道当时发生了什么，也不想追究英国当年有着什么样的社会问题，只是觉得故土难离、亲情爱情、两小无猜和思想双标在哪里、在哪个时代、在不同肤色种族之间都是永恒的话题，可能正是这些定义了我们是什么样的人。2000年以前的时光过的也很慢，伴随大规模拆迁也有不断迁徙的人，就像北京旧城改造前，就像三峡大坝修建前…然而时代的滚滚车轮不会扭过来回头看，回过头来的总是那近乡情更怯的灵魂，为了一切忘却的纪念~
it's actually a bit hard to understand the lines with the accent.. but still such an interesting angle... and it's amazing that some childhood memories seems never fading even after a long time. a powerful work with many heartwarming moments that still resonates with me after the movie. well, TIFF does have taste. ps. it's strange some historic events look so absurd now but at the time..
喜欢这个剧本，表面上是简单的《我11》，内在流动的是一种离开，一种不得不成人，瓜熟蒂落的离开，一种选择，一种万箭齐发，不选不是人的选择。我们不得不走向的岔路口太多了，不见得谁好谁坏，毕竟，情谊也在马斯洛需求理论中，毕竟，活着未必比死了好。想起普希金的那句：心儿永远向往着未来，现在却常是忧郁，一切都是瞬息，一切都将会过去，而那过去了的，将会成为永恒美好的回忆。
镜头和音乐都很美，几个角色都很赞，很多对话都富于哲理。for the ones who leave for the ones who stay and for the ones who were lost
昨天的移民故事会给今天的困境找到一些答案吗？未来存在于过去中
当奶奶正对着镜头呢喃："Go.Go now.Don't look back."一个孤独的老人在失去另一半后，依旧坚强告别剩下的家人。只留下自己一人头靠着门，带着无言的悲痛与不舍。这是布拉纳私人真情的回忆，是布拉纳自己的贝尔法斯特。致所有留下的，所有离开的，所有迷失的。
Go! Go now. Don't look back! 结尾朱迪丹奇喃喃自语目送一家人离去，电影酝酿已久的乡愁也到了高潮。但也许是那段北爱宗教暴乱的历史过去沉重，削弱了主题，特别是从孩子的视角看许多桥段设计过于刻意，太像舞台剧不够自然，感染力欠缺。不过，诗意的摄影加超赞的配乐，以及演员整体在线的演技，还是值得推荐。最后，豆瓣评分这么低，难道观众口味都喜欢国内院线电影了🤮？
其实……我真的……很想说……有些国内导演……能拍到这个程度就差不多了……基于此……这片也不很差…（ps感觉科林老叔比梅林里长得好看了！！）
肯导这次拍自传算是用了心思，情感真挚，但缺了一丝细腻。有些表面的技巧，旋转运镜构图色彩等在这类作品里不能加分甚至减分（当然如果波洛侦探里能继续发挥还挺期待的），不能掩盖住情节松散和punchline的缺失。表演上，妈妈部分片段有点用力过度了（太戏剧了hhh），其他都还不错。
乱世，童年，小城故事，看到很多乡愁电影的影子，儿时记忆零零散散，中间的波折与成长有些许草率，很多场景不免有堆砌符号之嫌，但小主演非常非常好。
不及《八月》也不像《罗马》，反正哪一部都比它好看，属实是拍了个寂寞。
烂片有技术层面和心理层面的，这部片子算是全占了，开头的语言让我以为是八月，但之后打破预期一路下跌，浮夸难看，情感层面故事太过差劲，感情抡不圆，跟着时间走…
东一榔头西一棒槌地铺开故事显得有些轻飘，不能说全无可取之处，至少整体气氛还挺温馨的……
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