Original subtitles

- Headlines. - Scripture.

- Eden. - Architecture.

Composition.

- Make-up. - Catherine Jourdan.

- Performance. - Objects sharp.

- Games. - Viscous substances.

- Director. - Blood flowing.

Catherine Jourdan.

Richard Leduc.

- Pierre Zimmer. - Sexual Violence.

Juraj Kukura.

- In the labyrinth. - Sylvain Corthay.

- Murder. - Lorraine Rainer.

- Sex. - Jarmila Kolenicova.

- Playing cards. - Distance.

- Chess games. - Ludwik Kroner.

Theatricality.

- Phantasm. - Francois Gervai.

Laboratory. Catherine Robbe-Grillet.

Eden and After.

Eden and After.

- Eden and After. - Objective.

- Eden. - Subjective.

Injective.

Surjective.

Bijective.

Images and lights.

Editing.

Musical score.

Objects.

Pictures.

To Imagine.

Imagination.

Ghost.

Phantom.

Haunted house.

Mirror.

Rotary mirror.

Parallel mirror.

Distorting mirror.

Cinema.

Reality.

My life.

The two girls to hold her arms.

Hurt her if she moves too much.

Spread her legs.

Make her stay like that.

Lambda power N on factorial N,

multiplied by

the sum from V equals zero

up to the infinite of less than 1 power V

factorial N plus 2 V on factorial 3 V plus 2

T power 3 V plus 2.

The image of an application F is a part of the arrival of F

formed by the images of first F elements.

A relation of equivalence in an entirety E

is a reflexible, transitive and symmetrical relation.

The number of liberty degrees is synonymous with size.

If V is size N,

N vector of V constitutes a basis only...

Looking for a geometric spot

if you have 3 unlined up dots

don't think the result is a circle,

for nothing looks more like a circle than 2 circles

and nothing looks like 2 circles

more than a lemniscate to a Pascal is' snail.

The image of a sum is the sum of the images.

Here you are.

6 shots and just one bullet,

so a 1 in 6 chance of being killed.

Five.

Four shots into the air, and the fifth is a success.

The remaining odds are one chance in five.

One in four.

One in three,

one chance in two of dying.

Go on, shoot!

Of course, this is stupid.

Not any more stupid than anything else.

He's dead.

How was it?

Average.

It'd be better with real bullets.

There'd be the risk of getting a splinter in one eye.

Let's go to bed.

- "Oh, you're such a pain..." - Fucking, always fucking.

- Sell that thing. - What thing?

That daub's worth a fortune.

- What would we do with the money? - A journey.

- Where to? - Anywhere. Somewhere else.

What does it mean?

It's called 'Composition No. 234'.

Your uncle has some imagination!

We'll go on a trip to a warm and dry country

a naked and gleaming country...

- ...with vigour... - ...hard...

...tough, transparent, rigid...

...etcetera.

The desert.

In order to get money

sell the 'Blue Square No. 234' painting to a museum in the States

which was bequeathed to the world by the deceased uncle of Violette.

And to take hold of the picture we'll treacherously murder

his niece!

Now we have the poison scene.

DRINK BLOOD

BLOOD = LIFE

If this story bores you, then you're heartless.

Me, I have heart.

I'm too big hearted.

Death-march for our friend Boris.

Just across the street from the university

there's a big cafe that's all steel and glass...

it's called 'Eden'.

We go there after our lectures, or before them,

or instead of them.

It's a place we go to where we can invent stories and act them out.

In that cafe, we pretend to be happy or sad

to be in love, to break up, and to have adventures,

because in our pointless lives spent studying,

the truth is that nothing ever happens.

The waiter who brings the lemonades mixed with quinquina or cocaine

is called 'Franz'

That Franz pretends to be bizarre and ominous.

He's said to deal in mythological merchandise, drugs,

white trafficking for the Middle-East,

armoured cars,

tanks camouflaged as baskets of flowers,

ingots of gold, and mirages.

His name probably isn't Franz.

It might be 'François Gervai',

'Daniel Dupont', 'Jean Robin', or something else.

Newspapers say our youth has lost faith,

we have no sense of values,

and we take refuge in false paradises.

Our favourite games are homosexual prostitution

and group raping...

After reading those articles we tried everything just to see.

We've played seriously, with steadiness...

it's amused us... moderately.

Marie-Eve is jealous.

She pretends to pretend to be jealous...

But she fools no one.

She says she'll commit suicide...

who knows why.

My room is empty too.

Just a large bed and the blue and white picture.

My uncle's last souvenir.

I used to like it.

I liked my uncle too, in the photos.

I never knew my father either.

He died in Indo-China.

I'm lying, of course.

That guy who's running is Marc Antoine.

He plays the hunted man looking for way of escape,

knowing full well that he'll be caught.

That's when we saw the stranger watching us through the window.

Red wine.

I can show you something that's like that.

Give me two empty bottles.

Take them.

Go and stand beside her.

Drop one.

Now the other.

Pick up the pieces.

Give me your hand.

I learned that trick in Africa

I spent 30 years of my life there.

Ghosts of horsemen against the sunsets.

Africa is another ancient continent.

Matter becomes magic.

The black spirit, the obscure conscience of our reason.

Dead matter that is no longer rigid.

Dead matter becomes magic.

The blue water, the white sand.

And the hidden barrier that reveals itself to you.

Eyes full of reflections of the desert.

The young prisoners are now locked in cells

where no light gets in.

The wizards prepare powders from poisonous plants

that are capable of changing people suddenly.

While priestesses continue to perform

their sacred dances.

Meanwhile women have to suffer...

...a long series...

...of initiation trials.

The magi dance around large fires, until collapsing.

If one of you wishes to try the experiment,

I have here some of that 'powder of fear'.

Suddenly, everything was normal again...

faces, objects, gestures...

at least, that's how it seemed,

as though Eden and its customers were trying to be reassuring.

From then on, it's all a bit blurred.

Or rather, it's more confused in my memory.

We spent the rest of the evening improvising scenes

that were directed by that stranger.

He said our games were too abstract.

He told us...

Before I came in, I watched you through the window.

The gestures were stiff

as though you were ill at ease in new clothes.

Or afraid to get dirty or to leave prints.

Break it.

You juggle with ideas, but you won't get involved with living matter

as if you weren't born yet.

You smile, you're sheltered.

Outside, there is rain, snow and sun.

And the night.

Here everything is air-conditioned.

It's never cold nor warm.

Whoever draws the shortest straw will have to break his own shell

in front of everyone.

Bend her on the table.

I can teach you another game.

Give me a key.

It had better be one belonging to her.

Her.

- Tonight. - Yes. Where?

You choose.

The canal in front of the factory.

What's your name?

'Violette' and yours?

They call me 'Duchemin'.

- I have to go. I have an appointment. - Is it important?

I'll know soon.

- Are you coming with me? - No, I've got to work.

- You'll come? - I will.

My uncle's last souvenir. I used to like it.

I liked my uncle too, in the photos.

That picture is empty and dull. I'd to look at it for hours.

I know now that it's worth a lot of money, but I like it less.

I never knew my father.

He died in Indo-China.

We often played war scenarios at Eden...

resistance, heroism, treason,

interrogations using torture...

- Please, on which side is the water? - The water?

The canal with the barges.

That way... or this - it's the same.

You're in the middle of an 8.

Two immense cylinders side by side.

Let me explain,

or else you'll get lost

and will never get out.

Not to be...

...or else, to play.

That's the dilemma.

No feelings.

None of my feelings exist

except those I experience through the role play.

Come in my arms, my Ophelia

or else I drown instead of you.

Shit! That's Macbeth now!

After the last door

I'm surprised to see it's becoming light.

How could such a long time have elapsed

since those cries chased me away from my date's place

and forced me to hide in the factory?

It feels like I've woken up with a start from a confused sleep

and a sense of fear about being late for school.

Anyway, I go back to the canal.

Now it's broad daylight and I can find the bridge easily.

No one's there, of course.

The stranger must have grown weary of waiting.

Marc Antoine!

Marie-Eve!

Boris!

Jean Pierre!

Jean Pierre!

- Come here... Hurry! - What's the matter?

- I think he's dead. - Who is dead?

- Duchemin. - Who's Duchemin?

Last night...

You all went into that new factory near the canal.

No, we stayed here.

He was there.

- Who was? - The stranger.

The crabs ate him!

You've been smoking something, haven't you?

And my bag?

My bag.

- Did you leave your bag here? - No.

- Where was it? - I don't know. It's lost.

Elementary, my dear Watson.

The bag came here and ate the corpse.

- My key. - It must be at the cafe.

What will I do without my key?

Come and sleep at my place.

Nobody believed my story of a corpse.

After all, there was no trace of it.

You don't believe me either.

- Are you sure he was dead. - Yes.

- You're sure it was him? - Yes, here's the proof.

I found it in his jacket when I pulled him out.

IN DJERBA, AS AGREED. CLAUDE

He was called 'Eric'.

- He only gave his last name. - Dutchman.

Yes, something like that. I thought it was 'Duchemin'.

Djerba is the country he spoke about.

It really looks like blood. Was he wounded?

I don't remember.

- Isn't Franz here? - Who is Franz?

The waiter here.

So the former waiter was named Franz?

Why 'the former'?

Because he stopped working here last night.

So suddenly?

Not at all. My arrival was decided a while ago.

Really?

When you arrived here, did you find a key?

There's one on the piano.

Straight away, I can feel that something's changed.

The blue and white picture has vanished.

Stolen without the lock being forced.

I realise that I've known it for a long while...

that absurd game with my key,

last night's accident which must have been a crime,

and finally Franz's abrupt departure.

The red-stained postcard is all that I have left.

The image, a plain wall of a house

reminds me of a short film about Tunisia

that we saw last week at Cinema Eden.

...the whitewashed walls of the house

with the blue geometry of the doors and a few windows.

The balustrade is painted like a trompe-l'oeil

as the sun flattens out the surfaces removing every effect of depth.

The sand, too, in the early hours of the day,

is deprived of shadows and perspective,

giving the impression there are no distances when actually there are.

Could the oasis merely be a mirage that's never reached by any visitor,

but which no one wants to erase from the maps

because it seems close, scintillating and real?

Water,

a mirror created by the contact of the air with the burning sun,

but deceptive because one could walk on the surface for hours

without sinking.

- A fine house. - Yes. Is it far?

Not very. It's just down that road.

The second or third block.

You can walk there.

Thank you.

What shall we do now that she's arrived?

We must kill her at once.

No, not at once.

After she's talked.

- I've decided: It's right now. - And the picture?

Is it you who's going to find it?

Do you know this house?

This house isn't unique.

They're all much the same. It could be that one.

That's the day I met Dutchman for the first time.

He was a sculptor or something like that.

He collected thrown out objects, rather big ones,

which he painted with vivid colours with naked models.

They were still or frozen in strange and awkward poses

among frames and metal structures.

He was a man of few words.

Maybe he wasn't really talking.

His face, his stature, his pale eyes and grey temples

reminded me of someone with a jolt.

But this impression of déjà-vu vanished at once.

Maybe it was that well known phenomenon called immediate memory

or memory of the future.

When I came into that house

there was another girl

whom I seemed to have recognised too.

She sat for Dutchman,

but she was probably his mistress too.

He used to have the same slow gestures

of a ploughman accustomed to clay or of a stone cutter

with his motionless eyes, his absent look.

What are you looking for?

Nothing. And I've found it.

What? The picture?

What picture?

No.

I found something I didn't know I was looking for.

You found it?

- No, nothing. - You went the wrong way.

No, it's not here.

So... Franz is making fun of us.

I'll deal with it.

Let me go!

They shut me up in a cellar or a kind of cell,

with my hands chained behind my back

and they blindfolded me.

On the first day, I made the bandage slip

by rubbing my face against the straw.

Then they came and hit me so hard that they tore my clothes to shreds.

And they blindfolded me again.

I don't know when, because I couldn't tell night from day.

They wanted to know where the picture was.

What picture? I said I didn't know and didn't care.

But they didn't believe me.

So...

You haven't found that picture yet?

Why?

Because I've found out where you hid it.

Let me go, please.

You're hurting me.

Wait... I can explain everything.

Don't move so much.

Now you'll remain quite still

and tell me where the picture is hidden.

If you don't...

Where's the picture?

Where's the picture?

Where's the picture?

No go. Duchemin doesn't want anything to do with it.

He won't swap the picture for Violette.

So what shall we do with the girl?

I'll say it again. We'll make her talk...

...and once we know where the picture is, we'll take it.

You'll never find it.

How do you know?

Why isn't Sonia here?

I'm not Sonia's guardian.

Violette, listen to me.

They're going to kill you anyway.

Swallow this powder, and it'll be over.

Who are you?

Nobody.

Stand up.

Take off my chains, it'll be easier.

Want to know if I like you?

Drink this and you'll know my thoughts.

Marc Antoine?

The small picture...

I no longer cared for it. Forgotten already.

They could do what they wanted with it. I didn't care.

Boris was dead. Sonia was dead.

Maybe Marc Antoine and Marie-Eve too.

And I didn't care.

Dutchman was dead and I didn't care about that either.

Now it was Jean Pierre's turn.

And all for what?

For that absurd little painting.

A few million francs.

It cannot be.

So then, what other reason is there?

I wandered around, my mind empty of thought.

I found the sea again.

Now I'm alone in my room once more.

Nothing has happened yet.

Soon I'll go and meet my friends at Eden.

They'll all look tired, as if they've been on a long journey.

Franz will still look like a villain in a play.

We'll drink lemonade with quinquina or cocaine.

To relieve our boredom we'll play games of hide and seek and so on.

At the end of the evening when the game reaches its climax

suddenly, there'll be a great silence.

Slowly, one after another,

we'll turn our heads towards the windows.

On the other side of the glass

we'll see the stranger who's just arrived looking at us with his pale eyes

as he pushes the door.