Hallucinations (2021) - full transcript

Reality interests me
less than truth.

That's why I take pictures.

I took this picture
inside a dream.

My body was gone.

All my organs were one.

I had become
the underlying reality.

I was made of stars.

My body was made of stars.

Oh, my God.
Are you Ava Gastpunkt?

I am.
And who are you?

Me? Me? I'm nobody.



Um, pleased to meet you,
Miriam Annabelle.

Got my hands full.

Um, you know, I wrote

my senior thesis on you
at McGill,

I think you're one of
the most interesting

female photographers
since Diane Arbus or--

or Nan Goldin or--

I don't know
why I just said that.

Do you think of Diane Arbus?

I don't particularly
enjoy it

when people call me
"female photographer."

You know, for the same reason
Chantal Akerman

refused to be labeled
a "queer filmmaker."

Intersectionality.



It's like somebody hand
the anarchist a cigarette.

I'm just a photographer, man.

Can I photograph your vulva?

N-- no, wait.
I mean-- I mean, what?

This is on tape. The tape--

The Pentagon
is gonna rise into the air.

When it gets about
300 feet in the air,

it's gonna start to vibrate.

Slowly at first,
and then a little quicker.

...LSD.
The water filtration...

Uh, not even in movies,
it's human behavior.

It's human behavior.

Landon. This is a Ava.
Ava, Landon.

- Is he your boyfriend?
- Sort of.

He doesn't like
being called it.

-It's too institutional.
-Hi.

Landon hasn't been able to sleep
for three weeks.

It's a medical condition,
but he refuses to see a doctor.

Even though his rich parents
would pay for it.

His father is always on TV.

Wait. What?

Mm-hmm. That's right.
Always on TV.

My brain is made of rainbows.

Curiouser and curiouser it gets.

Instead of sleeping,

Landon watches tapes
of the '68 DNC.

He's trying to find VHS evidence
of the phantom.

Isn't that right,
you fuck?

What phantom?

The phantom who runs America.

Conjured
by the Founding Fathers.

His large black cape
surrounds us.

Blocks out the true sun.

His illusion,
fabric of media...

beyond the simulacra.

Oh, my!

Look! Right there.
What's that? What do you see?

Um, money?

It's an eye.

Yeah. But whose eye?

What eye? Where?
Where's that eye?

I see an eye...

inside my dreams.

You see an eye
in your dreams?

I see one eye.
This eye.

Watching me.

I see space in my dreams.

That means
you're really aliens.

Have you seen my cat?

What?

Los Angeles cryptozoologist.

He's a sasquatch.
That one he is.

I felt that his heart
was full of sasquatch.

Like,

I hear his little heart.

I just saw that...

little heart
full of sasquatch.

LA crypto-Z
is not a real job.

That is because
I don't have a job.

I thought that's what
we were working on here, Emma.

What does
social integration means

in a disintegrating society?

Why do you come here?

D-- don't touch that.

- Sorry.
- It's okay.

Thanks.

So, next Wednesday,
my wife's having minor surgery.

Can we do Thursday at...

seven?

Hello!

I am Sir Reginald St. Clair.

Officer
of the most excellent order

of the British Empire,

and I will be your host

on this most magical journey.

We'll go here
and there and everywhere!

LA!

Land of a million
magic tricks,

dreams, and illusions.

Mirrors, castles,

chandeliers!

Habitats wherein we can find

the most curious
of life forms.

Shh!

Make not a sound.

What creature have we here?

Why it's Principalía Cordyceps,
otherwise known

as the young and important
regular female.

Unknown
is her source of income

and vast potential.

Oh, my, where was I?

What made you decide
to learn Japanese?

I want some.

- It's fun.
- You like it?

It looks toxic.

Isn't that a good thing?

What are these?

I don't know.

Mm!

My heart
was turned away as well.

Mm.

It's bone marrow.

What flavor did you just say?

It is...

-it's...
-Bone marrow?

...bone marrow,
and, like, something.

Smoked cherries.

Uh...

Fuck!

Shh!

Hello, Mom.

Merry Christmas.

What do you mean
it's not Christmas?

- Mr. Max!
- Mr. Max!

Richard Max.

It's him!

Richard Max! Sign my book!

Yeah, I'm Richard Max. Yeah.

Know what's going on right now?

Richard Max.
Tell us, what is the secret?

The secret is now.

Oh, my word.

Women?

God created women.

And then?

She slept.
The rest is history.

Cryptique.

Richard Max. Richard Max.

What does it feel like
to be the biggest celebrity?

What?

What the fuck?

You see,

what people
don't know about me,

but I know about me,
is I'm real.

Real dumb?

The real thing.

Maybe dumb,
but better than non-real.

Most people,
most famous people,

are really non-real.

Or really think they are.
Same thing. I'm not.

But you're just a novelist.

But listen...

I-- I...

oh, well,
uh, don't-- don't--

don't fake it,
just be real.

Lay the real thing on me, okay?
Don't fake it.

Books are, well,
what was I saying?

Mm, books--

well,
what was I saying anyways, um,

books are movies anyway.

Or movies
are real life anyways.

Before real life happens.

Next comes books.

So, I, uh,

I've read
a lot of '80s thrillers,

and I watched
a lot of '80s thrillers.

Most of my books
are '80s thrillers.

I'm-- I'm a meme.
What are you?

I don't know.

Name?

Molly Bianca.

Pleased to meet you.

Unattainable career goals?

To be a flower.

The shape of the universe.

That tickles.

Three, two, one.

Hold on.
How did this happen?

Is this another
Molly Bianca mythology?

More tall tales
and holiday superhero antics

from the heart of--
and mind

of the city's
most beloved bizarro.

What's a bizarro?

It's, like,
you're a superhero,

who walked
into a radioactivity tank,

and you came back out
totally insane.

Like, more insane than you.

Like...

you died,
and you couldn't get out.

And way more insane
than me?

No, you're--
you're way more insane than LA.

Your heart
is an exact replica copy of LA.

Upside down.

Adjusting focus.
Fresh. Rolling. Action.

Science has confirmed

the quantum mechanics
of Molly Bianca's heart.

An exact particle
of Los Angeles.

Identical
in every attribute,

a perfect simulacrum

of the desert of the real.

Her organism,

a formation of the hyper real,

vestiges of no origin.

The fiction is Los Angeles.

A procession of imaginations

transformed.

As they hear
the substance of dreams

and ghosts,
known only as Hollywood.

Look! There she is now.

No!
Put it out or I shall dissolve.

Who are you?

Who am I, indeed.

I was Hollywood once.

Champagne and chandeliers,
tears and tiaras...

moonshine
all gone like poof.

I was a star once.

I was.

I was going to do
the talkies.

Are you a poltergeist
or something?

Or something?

More like nothing.

Not even a has-been.

More like a once-was.

Dead.

Dead.

The dormouse said.

I thought it said,
"Feed your head?"

It did?

Oh, fuck!

What's the matter, babe?
More dreams?

What are you doing?

What is that?

Babe?

Babe?

I was a star.

I became a symbol.

That sounds like
a dream come true.

Not.

I could feel myself
s-- slowly tearing to shreds.

Internally.
From the inside.

A vast furnace
of atoms churning.

I was a storm.

This isn't a track off Tusk,
babe.

I met a very interesting guy
the other day.

He said it means something,
dreams.

But, like, I feel like a person
when I dream.

Not a person,
but a phantasm,

who used to be a person,
transformed to light.

Lost in galaxies.
A memory of a person.

Hmm, couldn't follow

up to
the transformativality.

Do you think it's possible
that our souls...

augment with other souls
when we dream?

So, a brief discourse
on rent, babe.

Behold, Anastasia Valeriax.

Somewhat
of a reclusive rock star

with consistent ratings,

a laptop recording studio,

and an income
less than subprecariate,

despite a substantial following

in Europe
and the Pacific Northwest.

Ten, nine, eight,

seven, six, five, four,

three, two, one, fire!

She'd been forced
to take a second job.

Situated here
as a forest ranger,

stationed in Griffith Park.

Curious destiny.

Left to hang out in nature

and think about music.

There it was.

Inside the outside.

A noise escaped

in the insect kingdom.

Crystal ringing,
logic of the Moon.

The telekinesis of a leaf.

High vibes of the rainbow.

Anastasia understood
the twisted logic

of the spinsters
named "fate."

And she found her own music
in every place.

No, no, no.
Too sentimental.

That's not what
you're supposed to say,

this is a televised
nature program, Reginald.

Think TV.

-Oh, hi.
-Hi.

Uh, I'm just peeling
this orange.

I know.

Is something the matter?

No, I'm just walking around.

It's my job to walk around
and make sure everything's okay.

In nature,
with the people, everything.

Want a piece of fruit?

Um, well, okay.

Are you Anastasia Valeriax?

Wait, you know who I am?

When you were five
did you ever think

you'd be where
you are right now?

- No, dude.
- Come on, man.

I mean, I guess
we couldn't have predicted,

like, the Internet
and all that.

- Right. I mean--
- It's just...

I wasn't thinking
about the Internet

when I was five
except for to play, like,

- video games or something.
- Yeah, but...

I don't know, man.

I don't understand,
I mean, look at it.

Yeah, I know.

We were at Wesleyan,
and I was like,

"I'm gonna do this,"
you know?

Like, really commit.

I'm gonna do it cool, you know?
Like, make it neat.

-Yeah. The music.
-Music.

I mean, I know musicians
don't always

make a ton of money,
except for licensing, if that,

-but...
-Right.

- ...I was committed.
- Right.

Look where it got me.

-Put it on.
-Fuck you, no. You put it on.

That looks good, man.

-Thanks.
-One more thing.

Oh, yeah get that.
Get that hair out of there.

-That looks good.
-What do you think? Yeah?

Yeah, you look like
you can prevent forest fires.

Let's go freaking...

- save the forest.
- Okay.

Infinity,
are you still there?

Witch-speak, James, my boy.
It's witch-speak.

Gee. Witch-speak.

The language is
from the lower Ural Mountains,

but it's a particularly

Los Angeles dialect.

I recognize that voice.

Ah-ha! Here it is.

Wait a minute.

You recognize the voice
on that tape?

1979.

Outside the haunted village
of ,

Prefect A29B.

Soviets were inflicting damage

on the mud fortifications
of the local witch armies.

But wait.

I thought history
erased the witch wars.

Oh, here it is.
That's when I met her.

792 years old.

She never--
she never told me her name.

But she told me this.

Wait.

I recognize that voice.

Infinity.

She can be
the greatest discovery

of the 21st century.

And then I ate its soul.

Gave him a little--
a little face.

Three, tango, zero, one, three

to bravo, Zulu,
eight, eight, over.

It's Mike!

How'd he get here?

Code name, Nova Waves.

Hello, Infinity,
can you hear me?

This moral decay weakened...

Can you hear me,
Infinity?

I'll be coming in
loud and clear.

Leave me alone!

...the
significance of the extreme...

Nova Waves leaves.

As anyone here can see--

Dry cat food!

Here everything
is regulated by machines.

You'll find that things
are very different here.

Leave me alone!

I was in love with her.

Continue, please.

In a full moon...

she would behave
in a very strange way.

Professionally I wonder...

...that after a certain time--

I didn't have
a place to think--

...can cause a cycle
of a physical transformation--

My colleagues--

I was successful with the--

The pituitary gland
and our psychocontrols--

...transformation,
a girl who--

There's not a vaccine
in the world that can stop it.

Code name, Nova Waves.

That's why it is imperative

for you to develop a vaccine
against it immediately.

Mr. President...

There's a virus...

Might've been in
a better position to develop...

...observatories as
far away as Siberia and
Beijing.

- Todd!
- Vicky!

Are you all right?

Stop it! Shut up!
Get out of my head!

Things like that scare me.

That's enough.

Look at that.

- Oh, wow!
- Wake up.

Did I say something wrong?

No, but you just reminded me

I'm supposed to
go into town tomorrow.

There's a NASA exhibit
at the university--

But you can't
speak German...

I can't,
that's why I have to ask you.

Do you hear them too?

Infinity.
Can you hear me, Infinity?

Where are you?
How did you find me?

Leave me alone,
it's not working!

Stop! Stop!

I have someone here
who very much wants to meet you.

It-- it's Mr. World Leader Man!

I have your instructions.

I first started hearing voices
in my head last week.

Mainly guys talking.

Dirty talking
about their wives.

Sometimes they'd stop
playing cards

and they'd talk to me.

Or about me.

They're using microwaves to put
their voices inside of my head.

They--
they have a secret lair...

in the Santa Monica mountains.

I can't. I can't.

My doctor says I'm fine.

I looked it up on the Internet.
I'm not alone.

You are not alone.

Who's next?

Halifax Kryptek.

KX1000 for short.
From the year 2257.

You are not alone.

This is my beast years.

H-- he follows me, he does.

Here and there.

Th-- through
a portal I formed.

He-- he looks at me
through the window and...

and then I wake up
and he's...

he's...

You are not alone.

You are not alone.
You are not alone.

You are not alone.

Bat people.

Bat people and children.

They see me.

They have huge,
green laser eyes,

their eyes don't see
in the dark...

they see through the dark.

Bat children raised in labs,
made of soy...

fly through the sky...

look through my roof...

see me in bed.

After the helicopters,
they go...

Like that.

Behold, exhibit A.

Time machine contraption.

I found this one
washed up on the cave

on the beach
outside a house in Carmel

near where
the dirigible went down in '83.

I restored it.

You can see clear
straight through

to this location in 1945.

The first time myself
from 1873

tried to kill me
in Dresden with a musket

out a hotel room window.

This spot
in space and time was Dresden,

due to the earth's rotation.

Orgasm laser.

Massive orgasm technology,

transmitted via ham radio
from MK High.

It's where
they program olympiads

using dolphin telepathy
in-- in Brentwood.

Do you know that school?

Yeah. Class of '89.
Go Dolphins!

Yeah, I, uh, I'm pretty sure
they work for the school paper,

like, special forces,
IOPS, or something.

They're giving me, uh,
pretty bad orgasms.

Um, usually
when I'm in traffic,

or commuting from work.

They're huge,

and I don't know
how they find me.

It's like-- like...

What?

Who, me?

Yes, you. Take it.

Come on.
Go on, little one.

Go on. Find your way.

Can you hear my voice
inside your mind?

Magic vitamins.

Take me
on a magical journey.

Take me
on a magical journey.

Can you feel psychic, LA?

Can you feel psychic now,
LA?

So, you're okay?

Even though
the pills don't help anymore?

She used to experience
mass reflex taxonomia,

parasomnia,
somnambulation.

Higher knowledge,
differentiated behaviors.

Modulated
in moon patterns.

Gigasmic non-corporeal contact
with illuminated beings

of a higher exoplanetary order.

Subscript.

Subject's eyes are nearly always
totally closed.

Went into
thematic spasmic patterns.

Corporeal organization
materializes.

Totally suppressed by the meds,
by the way.

But the meds don't seem to be
working so great anymore,

eh, doc?

We're up the river
with Brando.

Personal aside from me to you,
strictly liminal.

I saw a cloud
shaped like the future today.

And a...

princess.

How heteronormatively
monogamous of you.

Look.

Have you found your cat?

This one.

That's my favorite scene.
This one.

Oh, my God, that face.

Beyond goddess.

You're totally
my favorite Hollywood star ever.

Arcadia Harlowe,
an exotic species

of deceased silent film
movie stars,

who yet haunt Los Angeles.

As can be seen...

she's a real girl now.

Magic.

Oh, my God.
That's Arcadia Harlowe.

-Who?
-Star of silent film in cinema.

We have to go and put flowers
on her star now.

Is that a superstition
or something?

When you see a dead
movie star in Los Angeles,

you have to go
and put flowers on her star.

S-- see, it looks like her,
but that's impossible.

Holly. Holly.
This is really happening.

Happy New Year.

At last,
their arrival was complete.

The bringers of the sun.

She heard aliens
talking in her guitar amp.

She would never tell a soul.

She knew magic.

Aliens are coming, dummy.

Can you hear me?

This isn't a voice
in your head.

I'm you.

Wake up.

Wake up.

They're here.

What about that?
Where did you get that?

This one
I got in a thrift store.

It was just, like,
sitting in the counter.

The only thing is that,
like, it turns my...

-like, finger that green color.
-Oh, like, green.

Yeah, if you, like,

paint the inside
with nail polish.

-Clear nail polish?
-Yeah.

I've heard that,
I should do that.

I'm gonna call you Little Claw.

It didn't last long.

They found her.

All of it.

All the horses,
helicopters.

I want to give you
everything.

You don't understand.

Everything I've ever written...

everything I've ever done,

you'll tell them I did it.

That I'm dead.

That's it. Tell everyone.

Tell the-- the papers.
Tell America.

Richard Max is dead.

And then
we'll run away together.

That noise you just made.

I just want to
give you everything.

What?

Fake my death.

You have to tell them.

The Pope, America,

the Internet,
the trees, the leaves.

Tell them I'm dead.

We'll fake my net-- my death
and be on the headlines.

Richard Max is dead.

And then,
we'll run away together.

Everything I've ever done...

everything I've ever written...

all the bestsellers
I've topped,

all the royalty checks
in the mail...

all the helicopters,
the horses.

All of it was nothing
compared to you.

Mm-hmm.

And that sound
you just made.

I want to give you
everything.

What?

They are here.

Aliens are coming.

The pituitary gland
and our psychocontrols--

,
he'll follow her.

There's not a vaccine
in the world that can stop it.

Code name, Nova Waves.

Targets acquired.

Another day in paradise.

Looks like
we have a live one.

A doctor!

A doctor!

What's that on her wrist?

What, where?

Here?

A doctor! A doctor!

Here?

Curious.

"Give me the pills
in my pocket"?

Oh, yes.
The pills in my pocket.

Give me the pills
in my pocket.

The pills in my pocket.

Aliens are coming.

Help!

I feel like...

Wait,
I've been here before.

-What is that?
-It's my diamond.

So magnificent.

I can't believe it.

Uh, wait.

Wow. What is that?

It's beautiful.
It's cool.

- I can see you.
- I see myself.

I feel like
we're meant to be here.

Fellow humans,
get together.

Did you know?

Your eye!

What are you?

They left us
a piece of their sky machine.

Only we could see it.

Reality interests me
less than life.

But is life no more
than what's not there?

And is what's not there
really there?

Because I'm not here.

I'm not here.

I'm not here.

I'm not here.