Original subtitles

This is the house ofthe skinned ones.

We are at the beginning ofthe night of the clocks.

One of them has just been opened.

The young woman has stepped out.

She now wanders among the skinned.

Those who are dead but not really dead.

Whose voices can be heared

through their closed lips.

Are you the cousin of Michel Jean,

the recently deceased filmmaker?

What are you doing in this abandoned place,

where you can only meet the phantoms ofthe past?

I've come here t0 read this long forgotten novel.

It was he who gave it to me as a present.

That was the only time we met. lwas still a little girl.

We opened the book and read some random pages.

It was beautiful, very poetic.

These plants, those abandoned tracks...

...leading nowhere and going in circles...

...n0 train will ever ride on them.

This is a place very similar to him.

This was very dear to him.

At home he had a copy of it

and when he came into his room his eyes searched for the book

to make sure it was still there.

It made him calm somehow.

The cover fascinated him.

He called it the "Dreamflight".

I am only one ofhis creations. real and fictitious at the same time.

Iam in his head, yet, at the same time I am here in front of you.

But are you real 0r a vision?

You can see I am real, I have wings.

Phantoms don't have wings.

The have nothing.

Was it he who sent you?

He can't send anybody anymore.

He is dead, buried somwhere at the Pere Lachaise cemetery.

Surrounded by many of his fictitious creations.

They come and go.

Iam a prisoner of the burned forrest,

one ofhis most bizarre locations.

G0 to the cemetery, then you will see.

You will see them all... how sad they are. wandering around.

But when you visit Pére Lachaise,

when you go to his house in Limoges,

beware of the clocks.

They are portals, do you understand,

they are dangerous.

Some lead to the burned forrest,

others to places beyond your wildest imagination.

Now g0, and live the "Dreamflight".

His dream.

Wait, you haven't told me

if l will be able to see him.

Could he appear in front of me?

Is he alive?

Could he still be alive?

And both dissapeard in the dark of a mysterious staircase.

It's the dead who dream of the living.

Not the other way round.

Maybe there is a dead person who is dreaming ofme.

Who has dreams ofme even though he is long gone.

Even though he is burried somewhere else.

He is everywhere, here. there...

and every day and night, he is dreaming ofme.

He has nothing else to do.

Who could he be? I do not know.

Maybe Michel Jean, he was a cousin.

I have seen him only once or twice, in my childhood.

They say he is dead.

D0 you remember? l was a little girl.

We walked through the fields

and you talked to me.

I can't remember about what,

I only remember the sound of your voice.

And now you are gone.

I can hear you in my head.

Yes. I can hear you.

I don't always understand what you are saying.

If you are dreaming of me. please don't wake up.

Dream ofme...

...always...

...f0rever.

If they see us they will think we are ghosts.

But we are ghosts.

Good day.

The gates are about to be closed.

Once the visitors are gone the ghosts can roam freely.

Don't you agree, Isabelle?

And you are a ghost who knows my name?

Certainly, I am one of those familiar phantoms from your cousin's imagination.

You know, Michel Jean.

You know Michel Jean?

He is indeed a relative of mine.

I have inherited his country house.

I have never been there.

Then you should go there as quick as possible.

Maybe he is there, waiting for you.

He is dead, you know.

That doesn't matter.

The dead come back whenever they want.

Iam sure you will meet him there.

Him... 0r one ofhis phantoms.

What about you?

Oh, lam just passing by.

Iam here and then suddenly somewhere else.

It is an amusing game, do you understand.

I become one of Michel Jean's creations.

And then I become myself again.

But... who am l?

That isthe question.

Iam just a phantom that passes by.

That comes and goes.

Ah. there... take a look.

Look at this clock.

The Vicarage and its garden have lost none of their charme.

The Vicarage and its garden have lost none of their charme.

The Vicarage and its garden...

...have lost none of its charme.

Iam just avision.

The Vicarage and its garden have lost none of their charme.

Don't look anymore, they are gone.

And you, what kind ofphantom are you?

Maybe another one of Michel Jean's creations?

Maybe the ghost of Doctor Mabuse,

or the ghost of the Marquis de Sade.

They used to call me Rhadamanth.

Move behind the courtain. There you might find Michel Jean.

You are not sure? I have done it, take a look.

Give it a try. Like that...

And you, what is your finger pointing at?

Maybe towards Michel Jean's fictitious creations?

Your heart, it is your heart I am holding.

Your heart, which I have torn from your chest.

You. who used to be my sister...

...y0u, who I used to love.

Or is it actually my own heart, beating in my hand?

Each beat taking away a drop of blood.

And itflows, flows,

red, down to the earth.

Is it you. who is haunting me? Me... and my heart.

Is it you who is haunting the dancing lady?

Sister Martha will from now on be called Sister “Folies Bergere...

I have torn out my own heart with myteeth.

VWth myfangs.

I drank my blood to colour my lips.

Its taste still lingers in my throat.

Come, my beautiful ghost.

Come and kiss my bleeding heart.

What do you want, are you mad?

Mad, mad you say?

Who is mad? You? Me?

Michel Jean?

There is no burned forrest.

And you also don't exist.

This angel, pointing at me. Is in reality at the Pére Lachaise,

right next to the grave of Raymond Roussel.

All this isjust a fragment of an old sceenplay he never managed to turn into a movie.

He is dead, and you are just a leftover of his fantastic world.

Wandering around the cemetery. following each ofmy steps.

Faded. abandoned images in search for a home.

In reality, you are dead. Just like him.

That is a lie. I am alive.

Look. my heart. It is alive. It's beating. We both are breathing.

You will see me again at his house.

Me and all his phantoms.

We all are alive.

We are waiting, patiently and in despair.

We are waiting for his return.

You know, it isthe dead who dream ofthe living.

Not the other way round.

This woman in black, I think I know her.

Maybe from one ofhis movies?

But she was surrounded by the sea,

at the beach of Dieppe, where he so much loved to film.

A childhood memory he couldn't forget.

Wait!

Are you looking for Michel Jean by any chance?

Indeed. he is around here somewhere.

But you can only see him through the traces he has left.

One is the burned forrest and the one that is trapped in there.

The other is the house he has given you.

The strolling lady is waiting for you.

And otherstoo, maybe.

Who is that strolling lady?

The woman who walks with the dead.

You don't know her yet.

But when you see her you must follow her.

Take the train to Limoges.

G0 to his house.

In places where people have lived

something of them is always left behind.

The door is locked.

I can't enter my crypt.

Iam cold, so very cold.

When you leave, please take me with you.

Don't leave me alone... in this sad place.

Iam so alone.

Iam waiting for him, do you understand?

Iam waiting for him.

Iam waiting for him to come and get me.

Iam waiting for thisfor such a long time.

Why doesn't he come and get me?

Oh please, take me with you.

Be quiet, be quiet.

I remember one of his books.

There was a young girl, leaning out of a window, crying for help.

But nothing is real, not even this, and not even you.

You are just a delusion. hidden somewhere in the pages of a book.

Iam cold, I am naked and lam alone.

Take me with you.

We are closing.

Nothing is real.

Has the moment come?

Yes. Thetide has risen.

Then let us continue our journey.

It seems to me we have met before.

Maybe in Paris, at the Pére Lachaise?

I don't recall.

Iam Madame Pezet. the guardian of the keys.

Come in.

Did you know Michel Jean well?

I could hear his typewriter.

He wrote fast like the wind. sometimes for hours.

I stopped for a while to listen to him.

Yes, I knew him quite well.

What did he write?

A screenplay. 0r a novel.

His face brightened when he talked about them.

Novel or film, it was all the same to him.

But nobody knows what became of all the things he wrote in this castle.

They were never published. He died before they could be read.

A lastfilm 0r a last novel, we will never know what it was.

And now I am the guardian ofthe keys.

What are those stones?

Mem ories, just memories.

He still inhabits some ofthese things.

As if he was living inside of them.

Maybe he is watching you, through that stone.

Iwill go now, it is late. Sleep well.

But have a thorough look around.

Maybe he has left something for you to find.

You were at the burned forrest, with your heart in your hand.

Your bleeding heart.

You were there when I read the "Dreamflight".

The book which he gave to me as a present when I was a little girl.

A girl that never stopped thinking about him.

And now you are here, in his world.

Ibelong to two worlds.

Sometimes I am part of one, sometimes part of the other.

Where am I really?

Maybe nowhere.

N0 more here than in the burned forrest.

Iam truly alive only in the universe ofMichel Jean.

Iam waiting for him... everywhere.

In the burned forrest of his fantastic world. In the shadows of his house.

But it is impossible for me to meet him. I don't exist for real.

Iam not dead. I simply don't exist.

Oh, excuse me. ljust wanted to ask if you need anything.

Tell me what you know about his death.

He was on a trip.

One day they brought his body in a sealed coffin.

He was burried at the Pére Lachaise, you know, in Paris.

Where was he traveling to?

N0 idea.

But if the coffin was sealed and nobody has seen the body...

...h0w can we be sure it was him?

We can't.

Maybe the coffin was empty. Maybe he is still alive.

What else do you know about him?

You must have been very young.

Was about ten 0r so.

I was a very shy little girl.

He took me for a walk through the countryside.

I remember well, it was the day before his departure.

He held my hand and that bothered me.

I didn't want to be treated like a child.

You know, at ten you think you are all grown up.

I stumbled over stones and roots.

Suddenly he started talking, without looking at me.

As if he was talking to himself.

But I knew somehow he was talking to me.

Can you rem ember his words?

He said: "ln the opening scene of Vifiiiiam Wellman's movie Yellow Sky

seven horsemen arrive in a little western village.

Tired they go into the dusty saloon and at the bar they observe

a painting on the oposite wall.

It is a naive painting of a naked woman.

Sitting on a rebelling horse.

It isjust like in "Dreamflight". an opening to the poetry of another world.

One of the men starts talking, it is Gregory Peck.

He says: "l would like to know where this horse is going"?

The very same scene is in The Ox-Bow Incident. also by VWIiam Wellman.

Here, Henry Fonda stars, not Gregory Peck.

Then Michel Jean said:

“l am leaving to find out where that horse went.

And when l know, you will folllow me, little girl.

Maybe you will still love me then."

And l replied: “l will always love you. "

That was all he said.

I have never seen him again.

Maybe he did find what he was looking for.

But he is dead.

That's what they say.

But is it him who is dead, or is it you, who is not yet alive?

He mentioned a forrest, which he burned down.

The storm seems to have passed.

Madame Pezet?

Madame Pezet?

The clock is a passage between the rooms of clocks.

Where his body is at rest

and this very place.

If he is in there, he accepts your encounter with his image.

Is the clock empty...

...then I will return in a few moments...

...t0 kill you.

Don't open it.

Please. this clock must remain closed.

D0 you understand, this is a different "Dreamflight".

Much more powerfull than the old cover of a book.

The dream is indeed inside this clock.

What are you talking about? You don't enter clocks.

This one you do, to fly somewhere else.

We have meet at the railroad tracks in Paris.

It was you also in the burned forrest of his fantasy world.

Now you are here. Why?

He wanted meto play in his last film.

The film he couldn't make.

Where is he now?

VWI he ever shoot La Nuir rransfigurée. the film he was trying so hard to make

but nobody wanted to have?

Iwanted so badly to be filmed by him one last time.

In my mind I played over and over again

the parts and the death scenes he had written for me.

Where could all his screenplays be hidden?

Amidst all the piles of paper in this house?

Michel Jean and his last screenplay are maybe up there.

Near the bleeding doll, the queen ofSabah, near Cheri Bibi and Fatalitas.

And hisfriends hetalked about:

Eric Losfeld and Ado Kyrou,

Boris Joyeux. Jean Boullet. Michel Gay...

Oh god, why do I feel so lonely and abandoned all ofa sudden?

Iam just a statue ofwhite marble, waiting down below.

Waiting for him to come and get me.

Don't leave me alone. Come back.

They have killed me. Look, my head, cut off.

The dead bury the dead.

You have no business here.

Just tell me if he is still in this house.

Maybe you will find him in a corner somewhere.

Maybe he lives inside the clock.

Who knows. Maybe he is dead after all.

It is you, am I right?

You are guiding all this.

You are sending these visions to me.

Delusions right out of Michel Jean's fantasy world.

All his creations, all those, which I met at the

Pere Lachaise cemetery, right next to his grave.

Hisfriends.

The appeareance with the dress of roses, rising from a crypt.

The winged lady I met next to the abandoned tracks.

All these ghostly figures...

...all this is your work.

What mysteries surround you?

Are you an incarnation ofMichel Jean?

A sign he is sending from the empire ofthe dead?

What is hidden in your inner side?

Is it the inner world?

The world in which you are now residing?

Now goto him!

Look at her beauty.

Look, how naked,

how tempting and desirable she is.

Don't you want to be like her?

Show yourself, just as she shows herself.

Offer yourself. just as she offers herself.

Kiss her.

Show her your love, just as we all have shown her ours.

They are watching me.

They all observe my honouring of this female.

Her magic.

I can feel their eyes on me.

I can feel their living stare on me.

Vifith sundown the time of the metamorphosis arrives.

What was frozen in an existence of wax on moment ago

now becomes a living delusion.

Maybe the delusion of Michel Jean.

Or of Madame Pezet, 0r Kim.

Or of Isabelle herself.

It is a strange ballet, that takes place

in front of the young girl lost inside the labyrinth of the clocks.

The visions ofMichel Jean

will turn into a nightmare.

Suddenly, it was magical.

We were part of the images.

We were all the characters at the same time.

We were the book,

we were the diary of adventures and travels

by sea and land.

Where is reality...

...where is dream?

I believe there used to be a rock

and the sea, and seagulls.

A strange ballet will take place

where the settings will collide

places, time and characters will blend

under the unemotional stare of a sorceress,

making statues appear at the gates ofthe island.

We have come to kill you.

You will become one of the skinned ones.

You will be locked with us, forever, inside the clock.

Because we love you.

Our love is a love that kills.

Isabelle. come, come!

Ilove you, Isabelle.

Take us with you, Isabelle!

We want to come with you.

Don't stay. Run.

Leave us to our death. G0 back to live, fast!

Leave us behind and run! Run. Isabelle. run away!

We will protect you! Run to the clock, it will take you back!

Enter the clock, it is the only way t0 leave this place.

Run, Isabelle, quick, quick, quick, run away!

If you g0, you take his live with you.

You have understood nothing.

Come back!

Why did you leave?

This isn't real.

Nothing is truly real.

Poor, bleeding doll.

Poor, dying dilusion.

You have ceased to exist.

You will die just like the little girl.

Offering her blood to the grail.

If you die first, I will follow you.

If you die first, I will follow you, too.

- I swear on my blood. -|, too, wear on my blood.

Maybe I will join them.

Ifl can find him again. I will get the most rewarding roles.

The most touching death scenes,

the most violent death scenes.

Death in the movies is so much more graceful than in real life.

Because...

...because...

...Death does not really exist.

This is not the place for you to be.

Come, lwill help you

to get out of here and get back to your own world.

D0 you always walk through clocks to get back home?

You look familiar, I have seen you before.

In one of his first films, a vampire story.

Are you an ilusion?

Are you dead?

I died in the film, but in reality I am alive.

You know, death in the movies is more beautiful than real death.

I died drinking my own blood.

Surrounded by the flames of my burning coffin.

And tomorrow I might die a very trvial death in my bed while sleeping.

Only the dead can step into this house. For the living the entrance is forbidden.

But you are here. And so am I.

Indeed, we both are characters from his last film.

The film he is currently shooting.

He isn't shooting anything, he is dead.

Is that what you think?

Maybe we are actually the dead ones.

And what character were you playing?

A female vampire, of course.

Emerging from the mysterious depths

and from within a clock. just like you did a moment ago.

A queen of the abyss, playing piano inside a chapeii, accompanied by skeletons.

Listen...

Listen, the wind blowing around me.

The wind that blows from the swamps and the cursed places.

Listen.

What are you doing here in his house?

Iwas nearby and remembered him living here.

S0... here I am.

I rememberd the cemetery, bathed in a strange light.

It was less macabre than fantastic.

We were no longer surrounded by the dead, rather by the essence of dreams.

Violence became a thing of beauty, without brutality.

He liked violence, but only the fake, unrealistic one.

He is dead, but his creations might still be alive

and wander around here and there.

Iam sure you have met a few.

That's possible.

When I am alone with his souvenirs,

the stones from the beach where he used to film. that iron rose there on the bed...

...when I touch them 0r just observe them carefuly it is,

as ifhe was sending visions, incredible images, his images.

Certainly the beach. the castles. the girl with the candle...

...as if his dreams were haunting me.

You are lucky. I am here for over two hours

and I haven't seen anything nor met anyone.

Since he sends you images. maybe you can hear him as well?

Please give him the best regards from Dominique.

He will understand.

Today is the day.

The hour has come in which we will create the triumph

of the imortal race through a pact.

The vast nights of blood will open the doors to the world for us.

Many others will follow to taste imortality.

The entire universe will be a feast of blood and we will occupy the best seats.

We, the vampires, and lam their queen.

Why are you looking for him? You hardly knew the man.

It's the little girl from long ago that is searching for him.

I can only see his delusions. his creations.

But you, you are of a different kind.

Iam something else.

Iam his inspiration.

Iam the white rose. from the song he loved so much.

In his first film. you can see me enter a train.

That film is now a lostfilm.

He is still searching for it.

Who knows?

Maybe you will find his lost reels.

Maybe his isn't dead.

Maybe he is inside the clock.

Even if he is not alive anymore. he still dreams of me.

Of the little girl l was and to whom hetalked back then.

As the winged lady in the burned forrest said:

“it's the dead, dreaming of the living. Not the other way round."

Good day.

Here I am.

Are you Michel Jean?

Maybe I am Michel Jean,

or maybe one of his creations.

Who can say?

Look at me. emerging from everywhere.

From this clock, 0r even from this coffin.

Majesty, you were betrayed.

Or even from inside this mirror.

Iam him and then again I am not.

Actually, lam relentlessly searching for the lost film Lllinéraire mar/n.

D0 you happen to know where the lost reels might be?

I don't know. I think I have seen them somewhere.

There you g0, here they are.

But, those are the stills from the film Litinéraire marinl was talking about.

There, that's me. In younger years.

And here, look, that's Gaston Modot. The great actor from the films of Bufiuel and Renoir.

Lége cfor. La reg/e dujeu. do you remember?

And Chauffard, my friend, who also appeard in Le Square by Marguerite Duras.

She also wrote the dialogue for Litinéraire mar/n. by the way.

Fardoulis Lagrange and his son Pascal.

Ah, the beach, the beach of Pourville.

I guess it's there the reels could be.

I will go back to Pourville.

The lost film is very propably there.

VWI you come with me?

Quick, the door is closing.

Farewell, l am leaving for the fantasy world.

Take me to the statue, that's my place.

I cannot die, I don't exist.

My death is just an illusion.

My existence isjust a delusion.

D0 you understand?

D0 you understand?

Why?

Why?

N0 reason.

Iwill die again.

Everything brings me doom. the gallows, the spike, poison.

All that cuts, stabs 0r strangles. to end a life that never existed.

I... I am dying.

I feel this time it is final.

Iam suddenly scared.

Iam so terribly scared.

Is it Michel Jean's delusions that scare you, you little fool?

They are him, I am him.

We all are his novels, his movies, his riddles.

All genuine riddles cannot be solved.

G0... in there... goto him.

Look here, lam entering the clock. I am not afraid.

Are you too scared?

Don't be.

All those creations of Michel Jean,

all movies, all cries.

They haunt my mind.

S0, I will burn everything.

Iwill burn my memory so it will perish.

VWth the flames the images he lefi for us will perish.

And with them my own memory.

My mind is empty. Empty-

I can only see the present, this giant cemetery

with all the crosses and graves surrounding me.

Which one is his, which one belongs to...

What was his name?

Ihave forgotten his name.

I will remember.

His name was written on the tombstone.

But which one is it.

This one maybe?

Or this one?

Id0n't know anymore.

I cannot remember anything anymore.

Not even my own name.

There is only him and me in this cemetery.

Him...

...and me..

...walking ahead with small steps... searching...

"searching... those names engraved in st0ne..

L. who cannot remember anymore. l. who cannot remember my own name.

L, searching. searching. searching...

Ubersetzung: Peter Blumenstock