9 doigts (2017) - full transcript

Magloire starts running with no luggage and no future until he meets a dying man from whom he inherits a fortune. Subsequently, Magloire is chased by a gang and becomes not only their hostage, but also their accomplice.

Take this.

Go!

9 FINGERS

Delgado's finished.

Long Alley Pavilion

Is this what you want?

Right.

Well.

Well, it's a start.

Still no news of my brother?

Still none.



None.

You wanna survive

it's time to wake up.

He gave back the keys.

Guys like us don't get funerals.

If you want in

you gotta finish a job others started.

Time to go.

Better follow us.

You bought a ticket to death...

look it in the face.

War Council

I got this affair from 9 Fingers.

I'm still circumspect.



I don't see any reason to doubt his word.

Call it a fake hold-up.

We recuperate tapestries

paintings by masters

and a series of miniatures.

But the real goal

is the contents of the safe.

The guard is on the take
and won't be any trouble.

9 Fingers...

strange name.

You didn't notice a missing finger

from Delgado's right hand?

That's his idea of a warning.

Before cracking down.

Otherwise, he's on the level.

What he looks like is anybody's guess.

Remind me to call Ferrante.

Hello hombre!

I'll buy your version of events.

You're in.

We'll be off soon.

One little job is all.

You watch the ladies.

Tired out!

You're mad, you know!

They carry the plague.

We can go away if you want.

The Plague.

Yeah well, tonight

the roads are blocked.

Outside

nothing's there for me.

Tapestries

paintings by masters

and a series of miniatures.

The real goal is the contents of the safe.

You killed my brother.

I could take you down

you'd end up in the furnace too.

Fucking hell!

Nothing went as planned!

We'd better get a move on.

Hello?

Yes.

OK.

No problem, Ferrante.

We'll be there.

Gerda.

Guerda?

ACT 2

What's life like on a cargo ship?

Prison on a floating factory.

Welcome to hell!

Sri Ahmed Volkenson 5

Am I warm?

Hot as hell!

We'll be on this rig a long time.

If the others give you hell, ignore them.

The road is wide open.

So I'm free.

With us you're free

but not without us.

I'll buy that.

Last trip?

One-way ticket.

It'll be getting colder, here.

Come on.

Mr Kurtz.

Ferrante!

Hey!

What a waste that break-in at the manor!

OK, things turned sour.

Shit happens.

What kind of a mobster is your captain?

We said no women on board.

Malasorte!

As if I didn't think about that!

But orders.

9 Fingers again?

How's it going, Springer?

I must be seasick.

I don't like the water.

I can't swallow a thing.

And how's the wound?

Doing what I can.

It must be something real nasty.

Ain't even a doctor on this heap.

You'll have to wait till the next port.

Want me to get Kurtz?

No, I'd rather rest.

Ciao.

Magloire!

To sum up.

OK for the twenty grand

and Delgado's fortunate disappearance.

So I picked up where they left off.

I have a right to know.

What did you unearth near the villa?

What exactly is it?

If I were to say polonium.

A highly radioactive, toxic metal

produces a maximum of alpha waves.

Can be neutralized
with a minimum of precautions.

Do not swallow

do not inhale

or you're a goner.

You seem to know quite a lot.

So what are you worried about?

The safe-box is lined

with glass and sheets of lead.

Springer's state makes a man wonder.

I don't get what really happened.

We had all the equipment.

The plan fit the operation.

You remember

the famous guy

they say was poisoned by the Russians.

Ten micrograms in the blood!

At two million a dose
I find it hard to believe.

Too expensive for a deadbeat!

Bullshit!

The guy was in up to his neck!

He was preparing a bomb.

Well, he fucked up.

He fucked up.

The bomb blew up on him

before it was supposed to!

He was a thief

who forgot
to take the necessary precautions.

Let's say we change subjects.

Trust me.

We are harmless
and have the means to do harm.

That's powerful.

We could blow up world after world.

We are the detonator!

I'd say that's not too bad.

I'm thinking about

VAMPIR

a Novel in Tatters and Colors

You want to fuck?

Exactly.

I'm in tatters too.

To look in order to see.

I just want to see.

The problem is sometimes we do see

and then we regret.

Opiates!

Nothing better against sea sickness.

Poor Springer could use a hit!

Not a thing worth its salt
on this rotten ship.

Nothing in the hold

no crude oil, nothing but poison.

Admit it, Captain

you're running on death!

Admit it, Captain!

You're running on what?

Street tramps and poisons

are in command!

Are you in?

Ah, Zeitgeist!

Why are we this and not that?

It's our time that wants it that way.

Memories

I recall human glimmers of light

that will no longer exist!

The problem with drugs is to avoid
consuming the object of one's commerce

to conserve a necessary distance...

whereas this leaden case

makes you jump overboard

rather than glance at its mystery.

There's nothing on board?

Not a thing.

Meaning...

We're becoming unhinged!

Kurtz is fucking up.

The Captain is going mad.
Gerda is saving her ass.

Ask yourself if the dope helps.

It doesn't help at all.

It's a means of exchange!

With who?

Do you see human beings on board?

Who's buying? No one.

Just yell

you'll hear empty containers.

We have nothing to sell!

Death.

And then...

This vermin is a snitch!

Shoot him!

Why commit such thoughtless acts!

I do what's necessary to survive.

Like the others!

Yet I don't give a damn about surviving.

Am I an idiot?

Yes, I am.

To understand nothing.

That is the key.

Springer and that fucking lead case
are getting to me.

Going down this path is bound
to take us in the wrong direction.

I can't see us moving forward.

We're imploding by entering this story.

Everything is going the wrong way.

I don't like it all.

What the hell are you doing!

You're keeping me awake!

It's past five!

I don't like this.

What don't you like?

This Grail of Death!

What Grail? What death?

In a few days we reach land
and it's all over.

Now is no time to lose it!

I'm trying to think.

Impossible!

Dementia is on board!

Do not ingest.

Do not breathe.

Do not

eat.

You might say the plague is on board!

Your courage thrills Kurtz.

You earn points doing his dirty work.

But supposing you have a future with us

what are you up to?

Traveling through countries
of the free zone.

Wreaking havoc and the plague

wherever you go.

Producing disaster

with no other alternative

than the repetition of terror.

You believe in that?

I don't.

The catastrophe must be set.

Manage the madmen

as Arlt would say.

Every dive has three geniuses

between a crazy fool and a cynic.

These geniuses don't work

they don't do a thing.

But well employed, their energy becomes

the basis for a new and powerful movement.

You and I come from this impure pit

and what have we done?

We have shifted to the ways of cynicism

but cynicism destroys us

it's making us sick.

Sadness and melancholy brand us

like condemned, hunted beasts.

But joy returns the instinct of purity.

If we don't change our ways we're doomed.

If we don't change our ways

we're doomed.

The world is going down, that amuses us.

We profit from that.

We believe in nothing!

The route comes to a dead end quickly!

We must change

not completely, not immediately.

Revolution promises one, two years maybe

the ideal mob recipe.

We'll be outdated after that.

The time of blood has returned.

The time of vengeance.

But cities are like whores

in love with their pimps.

This can't go on?

Not so sure!

Nothing is less sure!

Evil knows its empire.

To choose between...

I'd rather be shot than end up a suicide!

Suicide leaves a bitter taste in the mouth.

An execution is perfect.

No more executions

just straightjackets.

That's why we need a revolutionary war.

A lawless war.

Only suicides of the elderly

who have exhausted all possibilities

seem to me legitimate.

Or even

admirable!

Syracuse, 14/07/33?

I date my books

by the day of the death of the author.

14 July 1933.

Roussel has held out for 56 years.

56 years!

You're not sleeping.

It seems no one sleeps on this heap.

It's the storm.

The storm, the storm.

I'd like you to stop frequenting Magloire.

Or I'll have you locked up!

Outside

the sky is spitting lightning bolts.

Inside me

it's the same.

We're going down!

Sinking!

We're diving!

I'm cold

without conviction

embarked on this ship with merchandise

of death.

Kurtz

pretends to be in command.

Ferrante as well.

As for me

I'm no longer here.

Make yourself comfortable.

The map is not the territory.

Right?

A planisphere!

A map of the world!

Suppose we're somewhere around here.

We're crossing the Gates of Hercules

Gibraltar.

We completely bypass the Middle East

for the Atlantic.

No

that was three nights ago.

Now

we're...

here!

Panama Canal!

No

here!

Callao, Peru?

Your end is near

if you continue seeing Drella.

You think you can escape!

Look!

Here

here

and here!

No future.

Roadblocks.

Floods.

And mud.

Mud

like the Russian war theatre.

Shifting fields.

Thousands of dead

under the crumbling rubble of buildings.

Horses up to their necks in mud.

Buried cars.

Marine currents spreading.

Spreading onto the plains, amoebic

monsoon epidemics.

Are you vaccinated against diphtheria?

No chance in hell.

We're going to take power with the plague!

This ship is the only life possible!

And forget about her!

But you're a good guy.

I trust you.

We disembark in two days at Antofagasta.

You know what you have to do.

Gerda?

OK, yes, you can come.

Naturally

Ferrante is at the forever empty bar.

Naturally.

I've just left Kurtz.

He's walking on hot coals.

He should be.

So, we're in deep shit?

Indeed we are!

Kurtz is totally out of it.

What the fuck business
did they have at the manor?

To be Ir-Ra-diated?

You kidding me?

And the ladies?

That cuts the cake!

Look at yourself.

Drella, my love.

Trouble is

we've got the plague on board.

A double!

You going down to play?

With what?

With the sailors.

All thugs.

So what about your bar-geniuses theory?

The theory no longer applies.

We have the bomb!

Precisely, that is reality!

No, not reality

it's dementia, dementia!

It's closing time, sir.

The whole world is about to close!

This man and I

embody the last fissile link!

By the way

how much are you paid, sir?

Rather little, sir.

Come along with us!

You might be the genius we need.

Genius?

The genius!

We're preparing the Revolution.

You're drunk!

He's going to believe...

No one believes a thing any more.

God himself wonders.

God? You believe in God?

God demands the destruction of this ship.

So we shall sink then?

Not so sure!

Not so sure!

God is speaking to the Devil

and they're planning grand things.

But leave free will to men.

Almost always

the Revolution is not the cause...

but the warning

or the punishment!

Sir, it's closing time now.

Free will?

It's up to us to bring Job down!
God's too occupied by time.

Time defies his control.
Time overflows all!

That's why there is a delay
in the reaction. Its silence!

Some speak of relativity.
Everything is possible!

Everything is possible.

Temporarily.

But one day

everything is adjusted.

So God...

would be temporarily surpassed
by several space times...

which is why there is a delay in reaction.

Its silence.

Sir, it's closing time.

That's it! Close this place up!

All is temporary.

We need an authority over time!

Without that, it surpasses us!

We are the ones
who must be violent with time!

We're going to react!

The moon shifts.

Resupplying

ACT 3

How are you?

I think someone knocked me out.

Turn your head.

The other side.

Eyes up.

Eyes down.

It looks like an epidemic is on board.

Open your mouth.

Wider.

Too soon to say.

He's only suffered contusions.

But I must examine the others.

We had an accident.

Springer, who was very ill,
jumped overboard.

Since then, nothing's been right.

Have you seen the new crew?

Somebody's mocking us!

To what drum are we marching?

To the Empire of Evil, we are all equal.

Usury eats us alive.

Everything is for sale.

Everything is neutralized.

We must be dreaming!

I no longer understand

Kurtz lied to us.

We're not heading toward Callao, Peru.

We're heading up north.

No, you're not dreaming!

One-third of the surface area of Canada

is moving across the ocean
in the form of waste

between southern Japan
and eastern Hawaii!

We lose track of some of these islands

when a storm breaks them up.

Islands of Waste are forming
a new drifting continent

without geological roots.

Everything is stabilizing.

Mountainous masses are forming.

Constrictions appear due to storm activity.

Note the formation of artificial canals.

I think...

their origins are derived
from East to West currents

which are artificially reinforced

by human industry.

No doubt.

People are consolidating river passages

by injecting plastic charges or concrete.

So what's going on?

Who knows!

And this new doctor who just boarded?

He has products.

So many products!

Products, great!

But what's happening to us?

We're quenching the thirst.

Ciao!

Our ship has changed its name!

Damnation.

Neither Kurtz

and his phantasmagoria

of a new substitute stud

nor Warner Oland

and his capricious mania

for the Zeitgeist

nor even Ferrante

captive to

propaganda

through action

are capable

of awakening me

from the dream I've slipped into.

Are we truly

aboard

a Ghost Ship?

What's going on!

What to say.

Our visit by Zodiac to the Island of Waste

leads me to wonder

not to say perturbs me.

Oh, so that perturbs you. Your visit!

Absolutely.

Which one?

It's clear you don't lack imagination.

For my part

I think Nowhereland is good news!

People are working
to stabilize a refuge for us.

I assure you

I have a precise memory of Nowhereland.

Formations of ice and ashes

that allow for the consolidation
of anorganic elements.

Nature hates the void!

Ash begins, vegetation follows.

I beg your pardon.

But this island

this sub-continent I mean,
raises questions.

It raises questions

if we don't eliminate our main problem!

Men, my friend

men want to block our enterprise.

Eliminate them, end of the story!

To an auburn shock

on nine cities!

Magloire!

Kurtz, Warner, and even Ferrante

are fucking fucked!

Everyone believes they're fleeing

but the Doctor is running the Marryat!

I thought changing the name of a ship
brought misfortune.

It's too late now for superstitions.

Get up, Magloire! Up.

What?

What's going on now?

We're losing control!

Since the layover in Nowhereland

nothing's going according to plan.

We're sinking.

Kurtz can't be found
and we all look sick.

Nowhereland.

The island we got supplies from

where the Doctor boarded.

And the new crew!

But what is it Nowhereland?

It's a terrestrial zone

where emotions are frozen.

Nothing is transparent

about the emotional freezing-over
that takes place there.

Human beings act in a deported manner

as if they were condensed.

And then the facts come in.

An observer could describe them,
but there is no observer

just accomplices.

And now what?

You don't get it. Not at all!

After Nowhereland

we act as if we had lived
through an experiment

experienced events
we did not actually live through.

The factual evaluation follows a path

parallel to reason

to sacrifice itself to a fixed idea.

If it's true, it's false!

It happened because it had to.

It happened because it took place!

Who produces what?

We deduce!

But after Nowhereland

it's: What produces whom?

Don't you have the feeling

that you know Nowhereland

while knowing

that you have never left this ship?

What you're saying is prodigious!

That's exactly how I feel.

It's enough to drive one mad.

What does it all is the genitive,
not the ablative!

We are

Nowhereland.

We have to get off this ship.

We're falling like flies.

But who

what is poisoning us?

I want to go too.

But it's not that simple.

You can't even breathe on this bucket!

We could start all over again.

Start

all

over?

The story about trafficking

no longer holds water.

In exchange for death, what do we win?

Nothing but Death!

Death!

I'm no longer interested.

I'm not playing any more.

I greet you, Old Ocean

O greatest of celibates!

You are more beautiful than the night.

Tell me, Ocean

Will you be my brother?

Spread out your livid claws

And tear yourself out a pathway
in your own bosom.

Roll your appalling breakers

hideous Ocean

Understood by me alone

And before whose feet I fall prostrate.

Man's majesty is borrowed.

It shall not overcome me.

You, yes.

Continue with the veronal
and the soneryl

the infection is going down.

And don't forget
the preparation I made for you.

Things are looking better,
looking better.

Kurtz is nowhere to be seen.

He's recovering, recovering.

By the way

how is that Magloire fellow?

He's recovering, recovering.

I don't dare go down to play any more.
It's cutthroat!

Ever since Kurtz has gone AWOL

the Captain and the sailors
think anything goes.

I lost big time
the last time I played cards.

Nothing but cheating going on.

That said, it's not all bad without Kurtz.

True.

It seems we're headed down
toward Valparaiso.

To believe the Captain

it's Doc running the ship now.

We're headed back up North

the same way we came.

Snap out of it.

The real question
is finding a port to disembark at.

Then you can run off with Drella.
That's what you want, isn't it?

You need cash.

Cash.

Hey, we were worrying about your absence.

Bad news.

Gerda is dead!

They found a box of sleeping pills

near her bed.

Gerda is dead.

Like I said.

And Drella?

Things are looking better.

Looking better.

For Callao, we're screwed.

Our cargo intrigues them seriously.

Antofagasta is still far away.

And the weather is not on our side.

We'll try to reach Iquique.

We have a contact there.

You get that?

I think so.

Where are we?

It's still raining.

The Doldrums.

The Doldrums?

The sailors call this zone,
the Doldrums.

It's a low-pressure zone that corresponds

to hundreds of kilometers
from north to south of the Equator.

The Doldrums are formed by the convergence

of masses of hot air
and humid anticyclones

coming from the tropics.

The clouds before noon

turn into afternoon storms.

Your blood pressure is not good.

These are Atalanta Fugiens pills.

Take one right now.

Then, 3 every 24 hours.

1 every 8 hours.

No more. It's potent stuff.

All right.

You don't look well.

Something eating at you?

It's like I'm reliving scenes
I've already experienced.

It's really unpleasant.

The feeling of being blocked,
as if by a curse.

Tell me

what do you really think
about Nowhereland?

It's a filthy zone.

That's not the word that comes to mind.

I'd say it's a temporary zone.

Everything is temporary.

We all come and go temporarily
where we can.

Nowhereland is an exception.

Everything starts over again there.
You'll see.

I wish I understood.

So, 1 every 8 hours?

Exactly.

But I thought that approaching

this continent without a map

was dangerous, in the sense
that it's not organically agglomerated.

Nature is taking back her rights there.

Precisely what I was saying

Temp-o-Ra-Ry!

It's a virtual zone

where all can start-all-over!

Don't forget. 1 every 8 hours.

Good evening!

Forget about it

Springer was a threat to everybody.

Kurtz had nothing to do with it.

Springer threw himself overboard.

Just like that, all alone

in the light of the full moon,
in a bout of melancholy.

Yes, just like Gerda!

If I remember correctly,
Delgado, Drella's brother

didn't flee simply to steal $20,000.

He deserted a situation that stinks!

Trafficking in filthy shit leads us to...

Exactly where it should lead us.

Gentlemen, I must leave you

I have an appointment.

One hell of a doctor! He's got nerve.

And Kurtz who still thinks
he can follow the maps.

The stakes have changed.

Now we're aboard the Marryat.

Assassins!

We've brought assassins on board!

The Painting of the Assassins

I'd like to know if we're still working
in the same direction.

In the same direction?

We're still heading south.

I understand that the stop at Nowhereland

has changed the stakes somewhat.

That was the plan,
to get supplies and fuel

and to bring the Maestro aboard.

I mean the Doctor.

To deal with the epidemic...

No

Mr Kurtz wants to discuss the polonium.

Polonium

is on everybody's mind
if I'm not mistaken.

Yet...

Polonium isn't worth a thing.

It's a mistake.

This world is a mistake!

I know, Captain.

What do we have left
to inverse destiny or time?

The ultimate poison!

Besides, polonium is merely the fuse...

Gentlemen, we're veering off path.

Yes, everybody knows.

But who's in command? You, Doctor?

Or the Captain? Or myself?

Who sets the routes and the objectives?

We're linked like the fingers of one hand

except that we can always
rid ourselves of a useless finger!

It was never my intention to...

That's enough!

So, we're going to disembark.

Exactly!

If the weather allows.

Polonium lies in the holds.

For what reason do you think?

1 gram is enough to poison 100,000 people

half of whom will die for sure.

Imagine...

there are 10, 15 or 100 cargos

en route on the seas!

Air travel

is controlled,

not the ocean.

There's one problem.

Supplies!

As we have seen!

And now what?

Now it's between Kurtz and the Doctor.

Who will eliminate the other?

For me, the game is over.
Unless we get seriously involved.

Kurtz, with his mania for exchange,
is dreaming!

And we, with our Zeitgeist.

But it's true.
The Spirit of the Time rules!

You can't vanquish time!

We have come.
We are among the assassins

and the cynics!

Except that they're dreaming.

They think they can beat time,
but it doesn't work that way.

Everything is on our side if we want it.
But we must act quickly.

We're gangsters after all.

The others are merely assassins.

Look closely at those men.

They're vice incarnate.

Terminal trash!

Imagine what's in those paint guns!

How to heal ourselves?

Pass along

the shame of the species?

Fill in the deficit?

Attack an other life

far away

anterior

when we said:

Let's go to Katchenko

find love in a bordello

and curse the West!

I'd rather leave you than jump.

I'll never have that courage.

No, it's awful.

Would you jump?

No.

I won't jump.

That's stupid.

That's stupid!

Nothingness.

Thank you, Magloire

for having intervened during the meeting.

You noticed land in the distance.

It's as if we've come back
to where we started.

Nowhereland!

In the morning
I steer us toward our routes...

But it's as if the damned ones,
the new sailors

oppose them during the night

and bring us back to where we started!

It's not South America we see out there.

We have brought assassins on board

I kid you not.

And the Doctor...

I don't know!

We have to return to land.

Yes, we have to stick together!

We're gangsters, aren't we?

For sure, I prefer gangsters to assassins.

What do you want,
killing is sometimes necessary.

It goes with the job

but it's not our profession.

Who will you give up our "light" cargo to?

I don't know exactly. It was a contract.

The contract looks dead if you ask me.

How so?

You know. 9 Fingers is death!

The text you repeat, we all repeat over
and over again, is bullshit!

There is no other way out.
We have to disembark and flee by land.

With or without the polonium!

With it is better.

You, a revolutionary now?

The briefcase is missing!

Probably disembarked at Nowhereland.

What about the Doctor?

He seems inspired.

It's as if he fell from the sky.

The Doctor will fall ill.

We'll see about that.

Since we obviously seem

to be the dupes in this affair

let's pretend to be the organizers.

Right!

Let's pretend to be the organizers.

Gerda!

The Doctor's Flight with Drella

I told you so.

This cargo ship is empty.

Nothing but shit.

Let's go, open it!

From Marryat to Elseneur.

From Marryat to Astrolabe.

From Marryat to Terschelling.

Dead addresses!

It's a Ghost Ship.

Never accept mail from a Ghost Ship!

Nail it to the mast say the precepts.

We're done for!

Unless we set it all on fire.

I don't get it.
The Marryat is a Ghost Ship?

Not the Marryat

nor the Sri Ahmed Volkenson V!

It's Nowhereland itself.

The island drifts incessantly

and it continues to grow in size.

Look

we're transporting containers
just like mail.

If we fail to act,
we risk turning indefinitely

around this atoll of plastic and ashes

to sink into the depths forever.

We're possessed.

The Marryat is done for and re-done!

You say that Nowhereland is a Ghost Ship!?

Precisely!

Nowhereland has no terrestrial roots.

We have not ceased turning around it.

Like it has a magnetic force.

But this cargo...

This ship, call it what you like

the Marryat,
or the Sri Ahmed Volkenson V

is no more than a secondary shipwreck.

So let's set this filth on fire!

Ghost!

It seems the storm has passed.

Looks like it.

No news of the others?

None.

Any idea where we're at?

It looks like they put all the fires out.

You can't locate anything?

No location readings,
but they're out there!

Out there? Who?

You see something?

The crew of polonium painters!

We can't see a thing.

What do you expect! We're going nowhere.

Are we far?

Far from what?

Stop being so enigmatic!

Warner

wait here!

We're going for help.

Strange sun!

You call that a sun?

Subtitles: Joseph Simas
Subtitling: HIVENTY