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".
黑白色调搭配着大尺度城市摄影下的微观人物，是最打动我的部分。仔细想想为何一定要用黑白摄影，或许是因为在洛杉矶底特律纽约等多城市的跨度，过多的色彩和杂乱细节会毁了这种城市结构与巨大景观，因为这之下的人物行为可以产生特殊的生活质感。比较喜欢的是对于人物前史的交代所做的文本设计，甚至有了一点是枝裕和的味道，用后置的不言的方式让观众心领神会这些角色的前史和矛盾。但完成的比较差的反而是华金这个角色的塑造，在全片其实并没有什么弧光，人物最初形象就不清晰，最后和侄子相处产生的改变也并不突出，同时穿插的纪录片制作桥段的选取也过于说教和输出，导致很多时候更像是一种公益片质感，采访部分和叔侄相处之间应该有更生动的互文关系
虚构与真实之间各种诸多无人能解的孤独，成人与孩子之间错落的情感，通过游戏扮演的方式打开了彼此情感的世界，从彼此外在到相互接纳，人与人之间不存在的感同身受似乎在分别时意外的出现了。
how to with Will Johnson is much more fun
哇，又是一部我的年度黑马影片。这小男孩演的那么好，不多奖励几颗糖！?
虽然主人公总与小孩子打交道，但是被采访的小孩和自己带的孩子差别可不是一点半点，全篇主要也就是围绕这个主题在讲述，话筒外的真实人生。不难想象的剧情走势，孩子的天真治愈了复杂的成人，虽然很温柔，但片子过于注重文本了，导致温柔成为唯一记忆点，这就有些不太合适。纽约这个城市真的太奇妙了。
整体情绪仍旧是平静温和
孩童时代是纯粹且通透的，而成人世界是复杂且充满谎言的。
不同的城市烙印着不同的故事，黑白的画面让这温暖的故事变成永恒
A24的年度温柔软刀子，治愈的极致是致郁。雾霾笼罩的褪色年代，只有影像和记忆是真实的。华金真的从声音到眼睛都太有戏了，那种隔绝，清醒又虚无的孤独感真的深入他的骨髓了，那个男孩，伍迪·诺曼太上镜头戏感太好。我们总会有那种身不由己失控感，和”妹妹“的，和“侄子”的，羞于认错，羞于正视自我，把自己的弱点看作尴尬无限放大，害怕给别人添麻烦……这是2022前最柔后劲最猛的一剂药。
午后的阳光打在腿上，看完这样一部电影，太温柔太细腻了，不过思绪总会飘到电影以外的地方，只好不停地按倒退键。
非常温柔的一部电影，娓娓道来，又像是叔侄的互相治愈之旅，很真诚很可爱，看得很舒服
A24的年度温柔软刀子，治愈的极致是致郁。雾霾笼罩的褪色年代，只有影像和记忆是真实的。华金真的从声音到眼睛都太有戏了，那种隔绝，清醒又虚无的孤独感真的深入他的骨髓了，那个男孩，伍迪·诺曼太上镜头戏感太好。我们总会有那种身不由己失控感，和”妹妹“的，和“侄子”的，羞于认错，羞于正视自我，把自己的弱点看作尴尬无限放大，害怕给别人添麻烦……这是2022前最柔后劲最猛的一剂药。
想打十星的片子。画面和配乐出色，让人即刻沉浸，即使要跟着华金聆听全世界的城市，我也能一直一直这么看下去。喜欢这种探讨和反思，沟通与表达。做妈妈很难，但还是想抱紧我的宝贝再次说声对不起。
看着华金穿着家居服在家里晃，我觉得这才是一个男人最性感的时刻吧！！很喜欢电影里用朗读文学作品的方式引出一些情节。月光曲的配乐虽然并不很有新意但绝对熨帖。很喜欢Jesse说，他的妈妈告诉他，尽管我们非常爱彼此，但我永远不会了解你的一切，正如你也不会了解我的一切，人生就是这样。看完这部电影，我决定新的一年也要多录下自己的想法。
影片视角：
一部很有设计感的电影，将虚与实镶嵌起来呈现。一面是，一个编导去记录，生活在不同社会环境和家庭氛围中的未成年人的想法的过程；另一面是，一个叔叔和他年仅9岁的侄儿，如何从巨大的年龄差异中，摸索出共通的人生脉络的经历。
好舒服好温柔的一个片子，在城市间穿梭，收录着沙滩列车行人的声音，大人小孩情感的交流和接纳，一起呼喊i'm not fine. 中间穿插着所有的关于未来关于现在关于超能力的采访都充满了亲和力和想象力。
自由主义知识分子对亲情、成长、和解等生活系列命题的内心思辨，巧妙地通过“叔叔带侄儿”的故事和话筒设定娓娓道来～像是把王小波的杂文精选视觉化了一般～
一个孤独的人突然有所爱，有责任所在，是多么美好。一同成长。在新的关系中，释怀过去。
- "No,I don't,you do. You're stupid."
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