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".
风景很美，配乐溢出，故事一脉相承，基调荒凉，作者性大于情节性。房车文化和中国语境有所不搭，房车这种东西在中国代表富人阶层。倒是很符合美国人胃口。
记得的碎片：
其实不单单诠释的是孤独，而是如何解脱，知道最后Fern都没有走出来，在没有他的世界我该如何活下去？唯有走在路上，孤独的找答案，找到答案的时候，也就是和自己和解的时候。
孤独感是每个人都有的，所以人类就是群居动物。但是人的进化到现在的人，就是因为有许多异类吧，他们远离人群，也永远在路上。这电影其实还讨论了美国的养老制度，其实我觉得这个是很难解决的，人内心的孤独不是靠养老福利的提高来解决的吧。所以人始终要解决“自我”或“本我”的问题，但是活着还是必须有“他我”，“有人惦记才算是活着”。最终才自由自在的走在路上，完成“超我”。
过高期待让实际体验打折扣。支持亚裔女导演和女性主导影片，但感到全满贯奖项仍有政治正确的成分。奥斯卡一向喜欢的那种流畅的主旋律电影，看似内敛克制实际处处精心安排，受威尼斯宠爱也不意外。剧本主导型，并不算新鲜的社会失语群体刻画，承袭西部传统的公路片，各家前辈的影响痕迹，标准美式独立电影风格，让观影过程处处有déjà-vu感。更期待能有更加个人的表达。
音乐太动人了，尤其是篝火边唱起的那些老歌。年老又倔强的男人女人，扔掉羁绊，借着车子的守护获得自由和孤独。在与山川旷野持续的相遇里逃离伤痛，也追寻飘散在风中的无可替代的爱与家园。是一场与人生长长的告别。那些饰演自己的人的本色出演最精彩，愿他们最后都能获得一种抵达。
3.5 The score is smothering ...
观赏此片时，我在想每个人都有 #无依之地#，同时我又感觉所谓的自由也许也是禁锢…也许我们内心都有个“洞”，用不同方式去“填补”。Fern在一次次告别中上路，她与Swankie告别的那一刻，我挂念的是Swankie（她是无奈的）；但之后的一次次告别呢？尤其是与Dave的四次告别，自由、放逐还有家，都无法让她寻求到平和，但至少她知道自己想要什么！
感觉是把留学生常说的“好山好水好寂寞”拍出来了。
“成群的燕子在我周身扑扇着翅膀，我和它们的影子一同倒映在水中，就像在一起飞舞。” 好轻盈。成为星辰的一刻。也能回归尘土，弯下腰去，粘起碎掉的盘子，剪去乱发，冲洗泥土，努力做宇宙的参与者。道路是家乡，天空是屋顶，烟花在手中炸开的同时，被紧握也是生活的裂痕，可是硕大的远方一定能包容下一个小小的我吧。别放弃漂泊。
没想到能从别人的豆瓣里打卡～
虽然很流畅，关注的议题和视角也足够独特，甚至有深刻的意义。华裔女性导演拿到国际奖项，这件事情也很振奋人心。但似乎特别的部分就是这些了。
预算：N/A
不是一直在路上的小清新，而是行走在旷野中的孤独和疗愈。看的时候让我一度恍惚，这是美国西部的现代游牧，又何尝不是中国西部的心灵光景。在本片中无依是一种人生选择，可惜现实中无依往往是一种无可奈何。返璞归真的演绎让麦克多蒙德三度封后，集编导剪于一身的赵婷让本片浑然天成。《无依之地》让人看到，当一切因素都是对的时候，一部电影会呈现出什么样自信和充沛的艺术效果。电影中一切逻辑都完全自洽，现实中本片的遭遇却荒诞不经。
原来对弗兰西斯·麦克多蒙德的认识仅仅是面目模糊的“科恩嫂”，《奥利芙·基特里奇》《三块广告牌》和这部之后，她已经飙升为我喜欢的演员榜单上独一无二的存在，喜欢她身上那种tough，坚硬，强大，温柔和善意仅仅从眼神和不经意的小动作中流露。第一次看赵婷的作品，太惊喜了，能从这位八零后导演身上隐隐看出一个李安。
勘破三春景不长,绍衣顿改昔年妆。
重看减星。本身来说，还是没有跳脱从达内兄弟以来，大量独立电影对于pov闭环叙事的依赖。而从时代性而言，正如同黑泽明拍摄八月狂想曲与德尔苏乌扎拉，伊利亚卡赞拍摄码头风云和狂澜春醒一样，用中上甚至可以说是极佳的电影文本，来回避当下现实语境中的真相，以及输出奇怪的视角，这点本事是相当让人无语的做法。
观赏此片时，我在想每个人都有 #无依之地#，同时我又感觉所谓的自由也许也是禁锢…也许我们内心都有个“洞”，用不同方式去“填补”。Fern在一次次告别中上路，她与Swankie告别的那一刻，我挂念的是Swankie（她是无奈的）；但之后的一次次告别呢？尤其是与Dave的四次告别，自由、放逐还有家，都无法让她寻求到平和，但至少她知道自己想要什么！
documentary-like and very poetic; the leading actress amazed me. "what's remembered, leaves" Everybody will eventually go down the road. But why not saying "goodbye", I like this word much more when I recently learned that it originally was an abbreviation of "God be with you". Fantastic use of music!
剪辑还蛮有灵气的，风景和配乐都不错，只是剧情推动和一些关键点的设定稍显刻意，后半部分不如前半部分好。
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