The Games of Countess Dolingen (1981) - full transcript

The Games Of The Countess Dolingen Of Gratz

Now...

Now!

Now...

Just before that awful fall.

Louise,

I long for you.

Louise, my Louise...

Day by day...

Day by day, I fade away.

Louise, my Louise...



Hour by hour, I waste away.

My Louise, my angel...

I'm dying...

I'm dying of grief...

That's my name.

Louise.

My name is Louise Haines.

REAL ESTATE ADMINISTRATOR

Bertrand...

I waited for you at the station.

No one came.

Amsterdam is lovely.

You didn't come.

On the train,
I met three Argentinians.



I'm worn out...

Take me in your arms.

Say something. What's wrong?

Relax

You smell of sweat.

I couldn't make it to the station.
Excuse me, I'm running late.

Wait! How is Nena?

Oh yes, I forgot. She had a relapse.
She's at Maison-Blanche.

There are other places...
- She's at Maison-Blanche

She's raving.

Coming to Saint Marguerite
with me tomorrow?

No, I'll go see Nena.

All right. Get some rest. Ill leave
tonight, then. It's my only day off.

I've got to go. Good-bye.

I will go to the Place Blanche,
make love to a handsome gangser

and steal his gun.

They brought me here in an ambulance.
Why here? Why Maison-Blanche?

You're a cuckold,
but he doesn't know it.

You are faithful,
but you don't know it.

He came to pick out an etching once.
There was a foreign woman with him.

She looked rose or green at night...
She was beautiful.

I told them that story I told you.

The exhibitionist on a bicycle

when I was 12.

You'll give back my book.
You promised me a violet gown.

When I got here, two lesbian nurses

with heavy blue eyeshadow

put me in a little white room.

The Jasmin Man was with me.

I was Christ and he was God.

I gave birth to all creation.

The walls had no windows

but there was a skylight scarcely open.

And throught the skylight

a bird kept slipping in and out
slowly and silently.

Outside, the clouds drifted by.

And in the dad woman's sex
was the blue eye of God.

REAL ESTATE ADMINISTRATOR

That day of wrath

That dreadful day

Shall heaven and earth
in ashes lay

As David and the Sybil say.

What horror must invade the mind

When the approaching Judge shall find

And sift the deeds

Of all mankind!

It also reads "Open Rose ast Night."

She was quite an exhibitionist herself!

Nena, I want to give you
something I love.

I found it accidentally in a junkshop.

I was with a friend
I'm working for in Amsterdam.

It reminded me of the story of the doll
you told me the other day.

Those blue eyes!
Quite the same, indeed.

I can lend you by book now.
It's translated.

But give it back soon.
I've only one copy.

It contains much of what
I've already told you.

My childhood memories up to the age of 12.

You'll see, it's a very erotic book.

Maybe I can make a movie of it someday?

Now, now, Nena!

"Dark Spring."

You refer to yourself as "she"?

Read me the beginning.
I want to hear it in French.

"Her father was the first man she knew.

A deep voice,

bushy eyebrows sharply drawn,

over the green, laughing eyes..."

- Like mine!
- "He smelled of tobacco,

leather and cologne.

His boots creaked.

His voice was warm and dark.

His tenderness was at once
rough and humorous.

He played with the little thing lying."

Her father was the first man she knew.

His tenderness was at once
rough and humorous.

He would toss her in the air and she,
trustful of whatever he might do

felt him catch her in the last second

just before the awful fall.

Soon, however, she noticed that
he was almost never home.

She longed for him.

Gazing at the window

she wondered about
that bit she lacked.

The cross pieces reminder her
of a man and a woman.

The vertical one was a man.
The horizontal, a woman.

Of sex, she knew nothing.

All the long, hard objects in her room

she'd take to bed
and slip between her legs.

A pair of cold, shiny scissors,
a metal ruler,

a comb, a brush handle.

She'd stare at the window
and rub and rub

until it would hurt.

The house would be
so quiet as to seem empty.

Stealthily, she would get out of bed

and slide naked down the bannister.

She could repeat that good feeling
whenever she liked.

All children of her age
have such experiences.

Girls that she knew stuck pencils

carrots and candles between their legs

rubbed up against table corners,
jiggled restlessly on their chairs

but none knew any man
who would take them in his arms

and alley their suffering.

They were too young.

They marked time,
dreaming of the future.

But these pastimes exhausted her.

She grew pale
with shadows under her eyes.

Her father called her:
"My little ivory elf,

my little ivory angel."

How did he spend his time abroad?

Each time he left home,
he was nervous, worried,

Only to return months later
tanned and pacified.

Coming to Saint Marguerite tonight?

I can't.

You know that.

I'm going back to Amsterdam
to get that editing over and done with.

I forgot.

My train is at...
- Stop thinking about all that.

You don't have to earn your living.

You'll never get anywhere.

But...
- Be quiet!

I don't want to hear it.

It's all in your head.

Those promises don't make sense.

I hope you're going alone.

Because I can't stand that man
forever hovering around you!

And right here in my house.

It's been going on for months.

Exactly...

here and nowhere else!

While you're working up there

we are working down here!

What better proof!

"We're working!"

That's enough.

Keep your insults to yourself

and watch out.

A time will come when
you'll have to choose between him...

and me.

That's got nothing to do with it.

That's crazy.

Were are you going?

You're a pain in the ass!
Bye!

How horrid!

Home after a long absence
he kissed her hand like a lady's.

She did not know
her parents' marriage was a failure

yet she suspected it one day

when her father brought home
a beautiful foreigner

who made her a present of a wonderful doll.

She saw how her father
was fascinated by the lovely lady

heedless of his little girl.

She began to hate
the world of grown-ups.

Nobody cared about her.

A friend of the lovely lady's came

and of course
the child's mother turned to him.

Now, there were
two couples in the house.

They were very open about it.

Then a strange new creature
entered the house.

An au pair girl named Lucy Splitter.

COUNTESS DOLINGEN OF GRATZ
(IN STYRIA)

SOUGHT AND FOUND DEATH

Here I am, a helpless maid

Alone in the wide world

No one loves me

For there is no one to love me

This is why I dig my grave

To rest in pease as last

I plant a tiny flower there...

Such is life...

There came a handsome man

who looked on me in a friendly way

who lifted me onto his horse
and took me to his castle.

THE DEAD TRAVEL FAST

Die Toten reiten schnell

Yes.

This was Walpurgis Night!

When,
according to the belief of millions,

The dead came forth and waked,

Full of life

A ruby blood
colouring their lips.

I found myself in the very place
the driver had especially shunned.

In the village abandoned centuries ago.

This was where
a suicide had been buried.

I was alone in front of his grave
unmanned, shivering with cold.

Never would she leave Lucy.

She dogged her footsteps
as she cleaned house.

The last thing I heard was
the mingling of dreadful sound

as again I was seized
in the giant grasp.

Her nails were long and red.

She collected soap boxes
of every colour.

She appeared to be a great lady.

...but there was in my breast
a sense of warmtn

which was, by comparison, delicious.

For some heavy weight on my chest...

After lunch, Luch would go to her room

and read a big book called: "Dracula."

Then came a wild desire
to be free from something.

I knew not what.

A vast stillness enveloped me

as thought all the world

were asleep or dead...

Only broken by the low panting

as of an animal

close to me.

Lucy agreed to anything.
She was lovely

and dreamed of being
a movie star of a singer.

She smelled of lilacs.

This is the song I'm going to sing
on the Amateur Hour.

Is Amateur Hour the right word?

My American fiancé, Johnny,
went to Vietnam

and sent me this native costume.

Look.

Hour by hour,
I'm wasting away

My Louise

My angel, I'm dying of sorrow...

I'm sure I'll win
on the Amateur Hour.

I might also find

a Chinese

or Indian fiancé

or a Black one

or maybe every fiancé in the world!

Listen...

Did you know that
to enter vampire country

you always have to pass some boundary,

a bridge, a ravine,

a door,

a storm, a forest?

Well, I imagined a boundary
no one wver thought of!

It's not made of water, earth,

fire, air or time.

Someday, I'll tell you what it is.

My God!

The bastard!

Hello. This is No. 16 in St. Marguerite.
I want No. 2 in St. Pierre.

Is this the police station
in St. Pierre?

Good evening.
I'm calling from St. Marguerite...

This is Bertrand Haines-Pearson.

Yes, the big house in the forest.

I'm calling you because
I've had a berglary.

How do you mean "you too"?

Really?

No, only certain things.

Yes, small things

but that's not the point.
That only makes me angrier.

That only makes me angrier.

No. nothing.
That's the odd part of it.

No sign of any break-in.

The door was open when I arrived.

Not standing open, just unlocked.

Absolutely!

That's impossible.
I'd never leave it unlocked.

Fine, I'll be expecting you.

The bastard!

Pomerol!
Well, your burglars's tast is improving.

The first time
he settled for Beaujolais only.

Burglary à la carte!

It isn't funny.
I'm sorry, of course.

Well, I can't help it!

I never said any such thing!

It would be stupid.

I said he was
a funny sort of burglar, that's all.

What do you mean "anyway"?

You know I have to go!

This evening.

At 10:10

It's the last flight.

Hello?

Hello?

Lucy was gone.
So was her father.

She hater her mother
and had no cotact with her brother.

She felt wretched,
as only an 11-year-old can.

Seated at the table she gazed sadly
at her father's empty place.

She wished she were a middle aged man
with a black beard and dark flaming eyes.

But she was just a little girl
swearing with fear.

In bed at night

she would dream that a somber man
was doing her violence.

With all the might of her imagination
she tried to conjure up

that ruthless male
with killer instincts.

She imagined a dark, torch-lit room
sparkling with diamonds.

She lay on a cold, black marble altar
with sharp edges.

Her captors had her in chains.

She was naked,
trembling with cold and excitement.

Some of those men
wore sparkling helmets.

All were armed.

They came there to kill her

with thousands of slow knife strokes
forever postponed.

But she felt infinitely flattered
top be the centre of their attraction.

They tore off their masks,
baring savage, Arab faces.

There were Chinamen, Blacks, Indians...

She preferred these to white men.

None looked like any man she knew.

All were kings, princes, noblemen.

They stood silent, unmoving.

They terrified her,
and this was important.

She was not allowed to scream
or move a muscle of her face.

The loved the anxiety, the fear.

A knife slid slowly into her wound

then changed into
a dog's warm, moble tongue.

No one could save her.

Deafening organ music boomed out.

It was ominous and doleful.
Captain Nemo was at the keyboard.

He was one of the heroes whom
she could not live without.

Closer and more intelligible
than any people of her entourage.

She loved his dark, sad countenance

and reveled in the fear
aroused by the octopi

that invaded the Nautilus,

their waving tentacles lopped off
by the crew's htchets.

She knew what he wanted. She was racked
with anguish and curiosity

but she despised him
because he was too young.

If you tell Mama,
I'll tell herwhat you do with the dog!

I won't lend you my bike again
and I'll kill you!

She gazed at him in silent contempt.

Brother and sister
became deadly enemies.

She dreamed of ways
of killing him by inches.

Yes, it's the third time!
I'm fed up!

And I'm still in the dark!

No one can figure it out!
He comes in, God knows how,

helps himself and
leaves by the front door!

Yes,
that's certain.

Now, listen,
I won't see you beore you go.

Sorry, but I'm staying here
till I get to the bottom of this.

Don't worry, I tell you.

I've cleared my agenda.

I'm sorry, but it can't be helped.

How was your trip?

I received your parcel.
It's a lovely present.

Where did you find it?

The bookshop where we went once?

You say it'll remind me of many things?
Well, thank you.

I'll come and see you
as soon as this is settled.

We could go away together.

As long as you like, I promise.

Have a good trip.

Good-bye.

So do I. Bye, now.

Hello,
hello.

I forgot.
On no account are you to ring me here.

And don't tell a living soul where I am.

Bye, now. See you soon.

"My brother, my lover..."

"Floating dollars, flying carpets"

"...but don't forget to send flowers.
Lots and lots of flowers."

Damn fool!

I'm dying of grief...

Day by day, I fade away.

Louise, my Louise...

My angel...

Hello, Miss.

This is No. 16 in Saint Marguerite.
Get me No. 33, in Saint Pierre.

Is this the hardware store?
This is Bertrand Haines-Pearson.

Yes, the big house in the forest.

Do you have...

any iron bars in stock?

Fancy ones?

All right.
As long as they're quite strong.

I'm doing a bit of remodelling
before I go on holiday.

Oh, fifteen of so.

About five feet long.

Fine, I'll be expecting you. Goodbye.

Look!

Are you happy?

Yes, I'm happy.

Look!

We must get back to Paris.

Let's stay a few more days.

We're so happy here.

And I'd like to finshe this script here.

What's eating you?

That summer, she learned to swim.

Enough for today. You can get out.

Every day, after school
sehe went to the swimming pool.

Such was the communion with the sun

that here, for the first time
she did not feel alone.

A sudden, exclusive penchant

made this man the object
of a deep and secret love.

He did not see her.
He did not know her.

For the first time she loved someone
besides her father.

This moved her so deeply
she could have died there and then.

It was like being strangled.

He looked exactly like those men

In the dark, torch-lit room
waiting to kill her.

She was the child he desired
and would never have.

It was this encounter that opened
the bottomless pit of her suffering.

Still too young,
and brimming with love.

After so many empty, lonely days,

hers was now a life of plenty.

Standing outside the window, he smiled.

For a long time, calmly,

and very seriously,
he raised his gaze to her.

He passed through the closed doors.

He stood over her.

Then, she buried her head in her hands

and cried.

She was convinced he went
wherever she did.

Her walk was different now,
light and graceful.

Out of love for him she wanted to become
a lovely, elfin dancer.

I'm going to read today...

a tale by...

Edgar Poe.

I'm going to read you a tale

by Edgar Poe.

Edgar Allan Poe.

And the tale is called...

Silence

a fable.

"Listen to Me!"

said the Demon,

as he placed his hand

upon my head.

"The region of which I speak

is a dreary region,
in Libya,

"on the borders of
the river Zaire."

"And there is no quiet there,

nor silence.

The waters of the river have a saffron
and sickly hue

and they flow not
onwards toward the sea,

but palpitate forever
and forever

beneath the red eye of the sun,
with tumultuous and convulsive motion.

For many miles

on either side of the river's
oozy bed

is a pale desert of
gigantic water-lilies.

They sigh one unto the other

in that solitude,
and stretch towards the heaven

their long ghastly necks,

and nod to and fro

their everlasting heads.
And there is

an indistinct murmur
which cometh out from among them

like the rushing of subterrene water."

"It was night, and the rain fell;

and, falling, it was rain,

but, having fallen, it was blood.

And I stood in the morass
among the tall lilies, and the rain

fell upon my head

and the lilies sighed
one unto the other

in the solemnity of their desolation."

You dirty, little devils.

Sot!

One hours detention,

for all of you.

One hour of detention!

She peed on the floor!

Would he ever look at her?

She tried to imagine how it would be

When she would first speak to him.

Would that ever happen?

His breathing was calm and deep.

She drank in that face.

A girl from her school
sat down beside him.

A girl with woman's breasts.

A girl older than herself.

She's skilled in the art of flirting.

Passion demanded stillness, she felt.

He flew like a bird
or a fish in the light.

Already he knew her whole house.

He knew that she had tried
to draw his face

with such passion
that it was a good likeness.

He knew where she hid it
and it made him laugh.

Gradually, all her other heroes
faded away.

One rainy day
she couldn't go to the pool.

Feeling lonely,
she knocked on her mother's door.

Her mother was a handsome,
but coquettish society woman

with a harsh, metallic laugh.

You always had to knock a long time
on her bedroom door

and even after that,
she didn't always let you in.

"My mother has threehusbands"
the girl used to say.

Indeed, two visitors
came to see her mother

more often than her father did.

What did she do all day alone in her room?

Oh, it's you!

How timely! Shut the door.

It's been quite a while.
Get to it.

She ordered the child
to pluck out her gray hairs.

It was tedious work

which the child would only do for money.
Two cents per hair.

It's unpleasant, but exciting.

Let me give you a kiss.

Henceforth, she acquired
an unconquerable aversion

for her mother and for woman in general.

He didn't seem to need company.

The children thought he was a movie star
and knew his name.

It was an aristocrat-sounding name.

Long and complicated
but no one had seen him in a film.

Being the only one never to approach him
was her way of being like him.

She saw nobility in solitude.

What a contrast with the others!

The girl with the lovely breasts
acted like a woman in love.

She was experienced.

Younger girls made fun of her.

They envied her savoir faire.

One beautiful day,
he didn't come to the pool.

Where's Jose-Luis?

He's ill, my poor little girl.

So she set out to see him,
convinced he was at death's door.

She walked faster.
She thought she would never get there.

She felt awful and shabby.

She felt ashamed in advance.

8.50 Francs, my little lady.

Mr Jose-Luis!

A visitor for you.

Go on in!

What are you doing here?

Haven't I seen you at the pool?

Come closer.

Little girls like you shouldn't come

to strange men's rooms.

What would your father say?

Oh, I won't tell him.

What's that?

I brought them for you.

I bought them with my pocket money.

Okay. Sit down for a minute.

I see you were at the pool.

How did you get here?

I walked.

You walked!

May I? Please.

What did you say?

May I please have
a hair from your head?

May I also have a picture of you,
a little one?

Hide it so no one can find it.

You've got to go now.

You'll catch my sore throat.

It's late.

Go straight home.

Don't dally.

I'll see you later.

Bye.

After all, he had told her to hide it
where no one would find it!

Some day they might take down
the pictures to paint the room.

She had learned to distrust
the grown-up sense of order.

She would bury the peach stone
in the garden.

It would grow into a peach tree.

When she was an old woman
she'd sit in the shade

and think of him.

Go downstairs! I know everything.

I told Mama all about your greaser
at the pool. You're in for it!

I know all about it.

But since you won't tell me
where you spent the afternoon

You'll never go to the pool again.

Go up to your room and stay there.

No dinner for you.

She hated her mother.

And her brother even more.

He was always spying on her.

She'd have happily watched him die
in agony at her feet.

As usual,
her father was in foreign parts

and would be back in two weeks.

"To die in a foreign land"
was a phrase

she had read somewhere
and never forgotten.

Her father kept a loaded revolve
by his bedside.

Hadn't he too thought of suicide?

If she took the plunge,
if she took a big run-up,

she could "die in a foreign land."

She'd fall into the neighbour's garden.

What would the other children say
when she dies?

And the teachers?

How many other people
were standing in windows

across the world, about to jump?

She felt a gush of hot pity

for people, for animals, fhor herself.

What about him?

She saw those two faces of his.

The happy smile when he watched
children warming up in the sun.

The serious air when he shut
his blue eyes and basked in the sun.

Would he even know she was dead?

She wanted to look beautiful in death.

She wanted to be admired.

Never was a child so lovely in death.

And people would look at each other
"Did you know that child died of love?"

She climbed over the window-sill,

clinging to the railing,
and say herself in the mirror.

Her reflection was ghost-like.

She thought she looked lovely.

"It's all over," she whispered,
and she felt dead

before her feet left the ledge.

She fell on her head
and broke her neck.

Her tiny body
lay strangely twisted in the grass.

The dog found her first.

He put his head between her legs
and began to lick her.

When she didn't move
he began to whine softly

and lay down beside her.

Hello, Miss.

This is No. 16 in St. Marguerite.
I'd like No. 2 in St. Pierre, please.

The police station?

This is Bertrand Haines-Pearson.

Please come out right away.
I've a corpse in my fireplace.

Tit for tat!

Tit for tat!

Then he died of hunger and thirst?

Unless...

he died of fright first.

But that's terrible.

And you had no trouble with the police?

Nonsense!

Bertrand simply realized that
his burglar got in through the chimney.

So he had it sealed off
before he went on holiday.

A man has a right
to protect his property, right?

Even if people do find him
a bit eccentric.

A burglar alarm
would have been useless.

It's miles from anywhere.

In this case, unfortunately,

the thief, as the inquest showed,

came down the flue
without rope or grapnel

using a climber's technique
termed, aptly enough

"the chimney method."

You brace yourself
with your hands, feet

and back.

When he got as low as he could,
he jumped.

Now, Bertrand's fireplace
is high and wide.

He couldn't escape,
so who's to blame?

Where I come from

the shepherds sleep with
loaded shotguns. Just near our house.

There are hippie communities
that moved onto the farms around us.

Of course! The steal their sheep!

I've set wolf traps in my garden.

But there are warning signs everywhere!

What about that trip to Italy?

Can't take a holiday in peace
these days!

I know some people...
- Marie will handle that, or Louise.

The workmen are hopeless.
A job is nver done on time!

You can't stay angry with them, though.
They are too good-natured.

Anyway, I've sold the house.

By the way, when did it happen?

It was about eight months ago.

Wasn't it, Louise?

Louise has been very upset
by Nena's recent death.

She was terribly fond of her.

I didn't know about Nena.

I read her book. Very fine.

What did she die of?

It was suicide.

Just like in her book, it seems.
I still haven't read it.

She jumped out of the window.

She was schizophrenic, you know.

Louise,

what are you doing?

You're mad!

I hate you!

I hate you!

All of you!

My child!

Louise

My child!

Louise!

What are you doing?

Open this door!

My child!

Louise!

I want my child!

My child!

Louise!

Louise!

My child...

My sister...

Think about the sweetness...

My child!
My child!

Louise!

Louise!

Louise!

Louise!

Heinous-Pearson.

Nemo-Zero.

♪Row, row, row your boat,

♪gently down the stream.

The Manitoba doesn't answer any more.

Louise!

Louise Heinous...

N

N... E...

N...

A... N... E...

Anne!

Anne! My sister Ann!

Do you see anything coming?

Turning green! Turning to dust!

Turning green! Turning to dust!

Turning to shit.

In summer, at noontime,

we are bored shitless!

Everything green is white.

Everything that grows...

doesn't move any more.

Venice...

Venice the Red.

Venice...

Venice.

But there is no wind toward the Heaven.

That's it.

I know where the boundary is.

Past a certain point

the forest starts to bleed.

Everything starts to bleed.
Trees bleed under the ax.

Grass bleeds under the finger.

And leaves under the teeth.
Everything that grows.

You enter the theatre.

It's vampire country.

My child!
Louise!

Louise!
My child!

This is Mary's month,

the merriest month of all!

Turning green.

Turning to dust.

Now!