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".
需要冲突矛盾就堆砌苦难和意外，努力尝试用病人视角观察却写出狗屎一样的台词，到处是无病呻吟感，电视剧画面，毫无调度，想利用声音来刻画病人的特殊体验，却失控成了惊悚效果，蛇，蓝色防雨布之类运用的实在是太直白，几乎和阳光普照一样的毛病。
一场突如其来的疫情让原本就有隔阂的母女间又多隔了两层口罩，也让一个原本还算富裕的家庭脱离了中产，生活的艰辛让妈妈变得隐忍，女儿变得懂事，只要努力一切都在向好的方向发展。保洁阿姨，中介老板、顶头上司、同班同学，那些生活中的善良也在让这场大病渐渐自愈。瀑布是建筑外遮住阳光的蓝色围挡，是疫情下不得不戴的口罩，也是人与人之间看不见的隔阂，当积累许久的情绪随着瀑布一泻而下，变成河流，小溪，终将汇成一座宁静的湖泊。
大概想再拍一部《阳光普照》那样的片子，但这《瀑布》强烈的鸡汤感比起上一部“阴影”的叙述实在差太远，要不是配乐不错实在听不下这堆破台词，陈以文说“出来工作，最重要的就是”时我脑海里已经替他接出“把握时间，掌握方向”了。
这还是属于中岛传雄的影像，尽管钟孟宏的温情没有以前那么冷峻了。
钟孟宏对疫情时代最有温度的记录，但又不仅仅关于疫情，当那些测温、口罩、隔离的场景渐渐随着故事发展后开始变得不再重要了，电影也真正的走入到人物内心的世界，装修工程的脚架和帏幕阻拦了屋子中的阳光和交流，母女两人的战争激化着，在如此压抑的环境中，我们对外界、对他人的感知失去了温度，瀑布的意象在电影结尾处的几分钟才明确下来，犹如激流卷走了生命，但瀑布又是一种提醒，在时刻提醒着我们日常的可贵，人可能无法抗拒洪流，我们都住在没有围栏的高楼，随波逐流之中我们是否能回头看看自己失去了什么呢，当世界无可避免地走向消逝，这些曾经的痛苦和磨难会变成保护我们的铠甲，因为在命运的侵蚀中，我们拥有彼此依靠的力量，钟孟宏将这个下行的故事拍得非常平稳，既没有刻意的煽情也没有放大悲剧，而是用一种中国人独有的坚强与希望注解
影片的影像風格、電影配樂和演員的表演都尤其溫潤和自然，極重掌握分寸，且重“收”更勝於“放”。看多了情節狗血、演技浮誇、臺詞不說人話、對白咋咋呼呼的大陸家庭片，鍾孟宏的電影或有洗眼睛（和耳朵）之功效。母親耳中幻聽的瀑布得到平息，和女兒從洪災中倖存相同構，是出色的電影語法。疫情在本片中被自然地處理為故事背景的重要部分，以及部分場景的靈感來源（如公寓樓為藍色帆布所包裹而遮蔽了陽光，即是口罩的象征物）。這場公共衛生事件業已持續兩年多，尤其是在大陸，更是長期嚴重影響人們日常生活、心理和情感狀態的社會生活中的最重要因素。遺憾的是時至今日，大陸關於此事件的敘事權利仍為官方口徑和主旋律話語所壟斷，儘管官方在明面上對我國的防控政策和效果言之鑿鑿、充滿信心。2022年7月16日夜於“禮崗影院”。
结尾那段蒙太奇有点强撑的感觉，全片也收地莫名其妙
在母女關係中的人才能共情吧。賈靜雯最後那句呼喚值10000分。
2022-03-20
这种类型的片一不小心就会陷入个人演技的表现上，最后就有种为了得奖而制作的感觉。整体上说贾静雯的表演是不错的，但是无论是对防疫也好，经济也好，很多外界因素的表现都有点表面和刻意，而对于人物本身其实也是做得比较浅了，结尾的瀑布绝对是莫名其妙大烂尾，只能讲从电影的角度有点一般了。
在疫情的背景里，房屋被蓝色防水布遮挡，阴影与抑郁一起袭来，终于，所有的伤痛堆积，她被“病”保护起来，在阴影里舔舐伤口。也因为病母女关系对调，被照顾被滋养。整个过程像一次心理治疗。她还是选择了面对现实。着墨不多的清洁阿姨，超市的主任，住院的病友，都在释放善意和阳光，她可以晒阳光，也有阴凉地休息。
瀑布，The Falls，中文含义：流动的河水突然垂直跌落，英文含义：下滑、下落、坠落、跌倒，这个片名相当妙啊！瀑布是夺走生命的洪水猛兽，是不堪重负的生活压力，也是带来压抑与距离感的蓝色隔离布，还是中产阶级努力维持却仍然不断下坠的姿态。影片透过精神疾病患者的视角勾勒出了社会的阴暗角落，这种既特殊又普遍的洞察，带来了心灵上的震撼和反思，这是既属于他们也属于我们的不安与失衡。
40岁之后重新成为运筹帷幄的大女人
不署中岛长雄的钟孟宏，摄影没有以前那么好看了。而即便设置了那么多的对位回应，故事本身还是缺乏戏剧性，可看性较弱。疫情所造成的焦虑和奔溃固然居有时代特性，但这个元素若是用不好，还是不要用了吧。
到不了满 但是有段时间没有这么被打动了 而且很亚洲 也很喜欢终于有华语电影关注精神问题了（除了内地的那些鬼片）两个女主演技真的很好 尤其搬家之后贾静雯在家吃饭的那场戏 但其他配角真的有点让人出戏 我不清楚是不是台湾腔的问题 配角真的让人以为在看康熙
3.5，最严格的口罩电影了吧。疫情最严峻时期，只是作为故事背景，主要还是导演擅长的家庭情感纠结和梳理，但有了《阳光普照》在前，很多情绪和蕴含情绪的剧情，就不再那么有感动和升华价值了。再说，人物和情节上做了减法后，也没让更简洁的关系有比前作明显的跃升。结尾那场直指标题的意外，看似有些多余，但也扣人心弦，同时也知道肯定会有个善意的结果。
在新电影里听到蔡琴老歌，挺好。贾静雯还是太漂亮，这对母女漂亮得不像出现在这样一个故事里的人物。关于坍塌与重建的故事，还是值得往里，再走走。7分。
《阳光普照》讲“父子”，《瀑布》讲“母女”，既是母女，便离不开女性和女权，影片中罗品文和小静搬出公寓时便象征着与传统父权的割裂，在独立生活中也并不是完全与男性隔绝，中介经理以及卖场主任对母女的帮助，应是钟孟宏想呈现的理想相处方式。喜欢影片另一点便是对“中年危机”的着墨，一次失败婚姻，一次降薪，一场病，便使得原来的生活如瀑布倾泻般迅速崩塌，由女性视角呈现，更显生活不易。女儿的成长和母亲的病态改变了母女的相处，她们小心翼翼地试探着接触，却在互交心悸时生出溺水危险，还好是dont sweat it，虽然不喜这个结尾的险情，但还是感谢导演对观众的照顾，否则真的是要骂娘咧。最后要夸一句贾静雯的演技。
喜欢瀑布的说教。钟孟宏又回来了。
不如之前的那些故事、线索复杂。看到她们家里那个《电车狂》海报就大体能猜到后面的走向。家里生活困难，还喝ILLY咖啡啊，还两罐。。。
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