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".
不过传统的另一种体现是他的视听越来越希区柯克了，有几场戏简直是《美人计》还魂。
镜头语言和配乐很有阿莫多瓦一贯的风格，在叙事过程中传递女性主义和人文主义的元素也让电影探讨的维度有所上升。但电影的两部分剧情有些割裂，强行合在一起并不连贯。孩子的逝去让她需要情感发泄的窗口，现实中的生活又让她学会坚强。乱葬岗上的骸骨背后是多少家庭的生死离别，每一段残忍的历史都应当在现在和未来不断反思。
我听见了
孩子是所有历史的鬼魂和现身，他们的到来提醒我们个人以及宏大社会历史的创伤，从各个层面上。（虽然本来也是情节剧室内装潢大师，但这一次似乎有点精美有余生气欠奉了一些吧……）
我是看到了很多奢侈品品牌植入么？色彩用的太好，看到每个场景都想酌一杯，难怪是电影美术们截图的重灾区。
《平行母亲》，乍一看集狗血之大成。出轨男主老婆癌症，女主独自生小孩，和女二孩子错抱，其中一个宝宝还死了。女二的孩子是被同校男生强迫怀上的，父母为了女孩的声誉选择默不作声。女主和女二喜欢上了彼此并同居……可是，竟然也不觉得突兀。阿莫多瓦的电影最可贵处大约就是不评判，不说教并且永怀善意。我们总要撕碎谎言，直面痛苦，迎接新生。影片的色彩真美，而贯穿其中的长枪党屠杀乱葬岗挖掘事件，大约才是导演的真正意图——这部电影是对年轻人叙述的一种方式，他们必须看一看过去。
回顾过去、揭开伤疤、直面生死，每一项都需要勇气。永远大爱阿莫多瓦的女性视角和对女性深层情感的剖析，Penelope在他的影片中展现出的女性力量一直都那么强大！唯一的缺点就是两条线之间有些割裂，如果两个故事能说成两部电影可能更好吧~
我是看到了很多奢侈品品牌植入么？色彩用的太好，看到每个场景都想酌一杯，难怪是电影美术们截图的重灾区。
非常扎实，故事性很强，俩女主，明线暗线交织得也算成功。最后一幕黑屏上价值观，还是有点突兀
这部还是典型的阿莫多瓦，但是加入了关于历史回忆的主题，还是不错的。
好像是一个挖掘历史的事件中乱入了一个伦理故事，两部分完全没有融合呼应，主题也只是在血缘上做了弱连接，有点莫名其妙。不过两部分分开来看都还挺好看的，佩内洛普克鲁兹那种自然状态下的精准太舒服了，结尾部分也很有力量。
不太行，drama部分和拔高部分有点割裂，结尾显得有点莫名其妙。但是女主真的好看，配色真的好看。
7.5/10，《平行老母》故事的内核其实是一场叙事的滑坡——🆘，连阿莫多瓦都在回归传统了！可见疫时代对人类社会的思潮改变之彻底。不信你在细品一下电影的走向：尝试重新定义母亲，但还是回归生理母亲；尝试重新双亲，但还是恋母情结的不恋母了、母爱回归男性；一群女性的遗孀在召唤着失落的男性。阿莫多瓦说出来的是“历史不会被篡改”，但他隐晦的反思却也是“传统不会消失”。“拥抱传统吧，就像拥抱母性的本能一样”这也许是阿莫多瓦最深处涌动的一个不敢言说的念头。
奇情的部分一贯好看，但是有关西班牙历史创伤的暗线并没有很好的与之相互文，导致割裂感较重
非常扎实，故事性很强，俩女主，明线暗线交织得也算成功。最后一幕黑屏上价值观，还是有点突兀
故事一般，也就是三星。但，立意，我个人给五星。
我愿意把柔情给予阿莫多瓦，因为他用镜头给予了女性更多的温柔、怜悯和赞美
这电影其实是沿袭了阿莫多瓦近些年可能是年纪大了之后逐渐从奇情回归情怀的思路，不仅仅是关于母亲，更多是关于母辈的念想。我可以理解，用略狗血的主线故事剧情，烘托出的是对历史、对身份、对亲缘更深一步的思索，带着最深最纯的温柔。至此我看到了佩内洛普库鲁兹挣脱演绎成为演绎的境界，大道无形，令人敬佩。
《痛苦与荣耀》之后以为阿莫多瓦要进入岁月静好阶段了，没想到这一部将个人的痛苦荣耀扩大到了整个国家。在右翼言论声量越来越大的当今西班牙，直接让佩内洛普喊出了犹如战斗檄文般的“好好看下我们国家的历史，决定你要站哪边”。
巧的是也表达了我近几个月思考的——坦诚的态度与对话、行为真的很能友好解决问题。电影里也是这样的——对孩子真相的坦诚，对历史真相的坦诚面对——谁都没有失去太多，亦或是大家都最大化了结心结。讨论区“我们和母亲的关系，就是我们与世界的关系。”这句话莫名残忍。剧情确实很割裂，会产生“就这？”的心情。本想说因为没经历过战争和不懂他们这段历史，但由于最近战争也在很近地爆发，很难说什么。
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