Original subtitles

I shouldn't have waited for yöu.

I shouldn't have waited for yöu.

yöu already said that.

yöu're a real pain lately.

Does my getting married bother yöu?

yöu're jealous.

yöu waited and we're eating on a bench.

yöu could've gone ahead and reserved.

I'd have caught up with yöu.

Please, that's enough.

Anyway, we're all sheep.

We all eat at set hours line up to use the can at set h! ours,

we all watch the boob tube.

In the past we'd make a public protest of it, at least.

But nowadays, slavey's par for the course.

We've always been slaves, yöu'll tell me.

But to submit to this extent!

We even fuck at set hours.

No, we don't fuck at set hours.

Then good for yöu.

Make the best of it. It certainly won't last.

Aren't yöu the pleasant guy?

Think for a moment

of those who, in a few years' time,

will have kids of their own and as a result

will have new constraints to deal with.

Look at that poster.

What do yöu think of it?

Attractive.

Even a bit arousing.

It was designed to be.

Think a little...

Panties...

are meant to protect

two orifices.

Or to protect us from these two orifices.

Brassieres, as yöu know,

are designed to provide support.

These two pieces of fabric,

their first mission accomplished,

are then turned into tools of charm.

So they come at a high price,

probably because we are all...

fetishists.

He's got a nerve!

Our undies and the protection of our "two holes"!

He's right, yöu know.

yöu're as vulgar as he is.

We all imprison ourselves.

yöu've lost me there. Why do we imprison ourselves?

Im going.

Sandrine, we're really late.

yöu're a real pain.

Relax, yöung lady, I'm going.

But in any case,

whatever yöu do, what sky can fall on yöur heads?

What a jerk!

Sure, if we're late again, the sky will fall on our heads.

Especially yöurs.

yöu're late every day now.

They won't fire me.

Maybe not fire yöu. But yöu won't get a promotion, old girl.

Let's go.

Come on.

yöu get on my nerves.

Sure, we all submit. No one enjoys it.

But if yöu want to succeed, or just eat, what else is there?

yöu feel superior now since yöu're expecting an inheritance.

So yöu let that tramp get to yöu.

Do like I do...

Think of things that make yöu forget.

like love and marriage.

Let's go.

Fred...

Come here.

Do yöu think

that we're all conditioned?

That we do things at set hours?

Not tonight.

I have to be up at 6 for work.

Turn off the light, please.

Why are yöu doing that?

Because it feels good.

Didn't it feel good earlier?

yöu trying to humiliate me?

I'm exhausted these days.

I know. yöu have been for some time.

True, yöu work too much.

It's not even that.

I'm fed up with the routine.

Fed up with lying to yöu.

yöu've been lying to me?

Every day.

yöu cheating on me?

No.

I mean, yes. I touch myself every day.

Even with this.

Why?

Because I enjoy it.

yöu're a slut.

What are yöu doing here?

Why didn't yöu come to work?

I'm quitting.

What's the matter?

I decided to take a year off.

Just like that?

yöu're nuts. How will yöu live?

My grandmother died. I have enough to live on for a year.

I'm stopping.

yöu'll never find another job later.

I have an MBA. I'll find a job when I feel like it.

Had a fight with yöur boyfriend?

I decided to take a break that's all.

Lately, I feel like I'm in a prison.

I have to get out, take a look around.

I'm fond of yöu, but yöu should spend yöur money on a shrink.

Like yöu?

I have to go.

Keep me posted?

Okay?

I'll call yöu.

STUDIES IN HYSTERIA

TRANCE AND HYPNOSIS

Say, mister... Am I disturbing yöu?

Can I ask yöu a question?

It depends. I'm not sure I can answer yöu.

What exactly is psychoanalysis?

- yöu really want to know? - I wouldn't ask otherwise.

What do yöu know about it?

Not much. I went to business school.

May I?

Go ahead.

I'll make it short and sweet. I'll try anyway.

It all begins with hysteria.

Conversion hysteria.

In the late 1800s certain patients suffered

from psychic disorders like blindness and paralysis

but not organic injuries.

They were thought to be bluffing.

But if yöu stick a pin into a paralysed hysteric's leg,

he feels nothing, no pain.

At the time Freud began to work with a doctor named Breuer

who took hysteria very seriously.

By using hypnosis,

he managed to return to the patient's past

and discovered one or more traumatic events that caused

the symptoms.

Explain that. I don't understand.

In fact

it's an idea

a violent but forbidden desire

that is so repressed it becomes totally unconscious.

Then it resurfaces, but converted

into a physical symptom.

For example.

a yöung woman at her father's sickbed.

She tends to him.

An incestuous desire appears in her.

She thinks "Not another step in that direction. "

So the desire and the thought that comes with it are repressed.

But the thing is,

it resurfaces

in physical form. Here, as a paralysis.

To put it simply. she can no longer walk.

Just like that? She's not faking it?

Not at all.

Do yöu really think a thought, a desire,

can become something physical in yöur body?

Even express itself as paralysis?

Yes, or as total or partial blindness

or loss of appetite.

Or in the case of certain neurotics

the appearance of phobias

or obsessions.

And yöu provide answers?

I'd like to. Anyway, we try.

We're only starting to discover the mysteries of the human soul.

Psychoanalysis has moved away from hysteria and the physical

to concentrate on other neuroses.

It seeks to understand manifestations of the unconscious.

It's amazing to see just how much

our unconscious expresses itself in our daily lives.

The unconscious speaks.

It speaks continually.

In what way?

Through our faulty acts, our Freudian slips.

And the projections we make in life.

Everything has meaning.

The unconscious speaks all the time.

But to people like me, who have no idea how it works.

Right.

Except that yöu, yöu pick things up quickly.

It's strange how our unconscious speaks by itself.

After all, we usually speak to our entourage consciously,

without really being heard.

We always talk to ourselves.

Wouldn't it be really interesting to study the body?

To know how and why

a thought, a desire turns into pain

or paralysis?

Am I being silly?

Not at all.

Maybe I shouldn't say this, but yöu're cute.

I like yöu.

I really like yöu.

Because I talk about hysteria?

Maybe.

I want yöu.

Let yöurself go.

Think of nothing.

What's yöur name?

Gregory.

My mother chose that because she was in love with Gregory Peck,

a '50s Hollywood movie star.

Everyone calls me Greg.

What do yöu do for a living?

Training to be a psychiatrist.

yöu also study hypnosis to cure people?

Not only that.

I'm trying to go faster

and deeper in my knowledge of people and life.

Hypnosis is a short cut.

yöur patients know yöu use them for yöur research?

Well, not always.

But I don't rape them.

I just learn from them, without telling them everything.

- Isn't it dangerous? - For whom?

For them, for yöu.

My love of truth is stronger than any morality.

What do yöur parents do?

They're both dead.

My mother was a cleaning woman, my father an engineer.

He abandoned us when I was 12. I never saw him again.

But I was very happy that way.

He paid us a small allowance. We lived off that.

And today I'm a doctor.

And what do yöu do?

For a living, I mean.

Since yesterday, nothing.

I'm exploring life.

Starting to, anyway.

yöu see, we're a bit alike.

Where have yöu been?

I just had sex with a man in a hotel room.

Has he been yöur lover long?

Since this afternoon.

When did yöu meet him?

This afternoon at 5.

I ran into him in a cafe.

He told me exciting things about life.

I wanted him.

And yöu enjoyed it?

Except for one thing.

That yöu'd be hurt.

yöu don't say! But it didn't stop yöu from having sex.

And yöu want more.

With him. Or someone else. If I feel like it.

Why not do like me?

Are yöu kidding me?

Want to hurt me without a reason?

Maybe I should have lied to yöu.

But I don't want to any more.

yöu're behaving like a whore.

yöu already said that.

I'll send for my things tomorrow...

And my furniture.

yöu know I just realized something really odd.

Hello.

Hello, yöung lady.

Like yöu, I observe people and the world around me.

All that exists.

If I touch someone

a woman... yöu for instance,

she'll react.

She may slap me.

Or be glad about it.

But in fact

what are yöu if not a void?

Did that shock yöu?

yöu didn't feel anything since I'm a void.

yöu're very arrogant.

And yöu have a funny way of starting a conversation with someone.

But, yöung lady, yöu're not a simple "someone" for me.

What I see...

People, trees, that tall building over there...

I realise

with difficulty, that everything,

including the sense of space,

and time

and distance...

All that

is entirely in my head.

What's more, they're images

first seen upside down,

then set right by reflex in my mind.

In other words I see yöu upside down.

So I'm an upside-down void.

Listen good.

Matter is made up of atoms.

Atoms made up of a nucleus

and electrons that vibrate around it.

But...

the distance between the nucleus and these electrons

is more than a thousand times greater

than their dimension.

Observe those trees.

They look like a compact mass.

If yöu get closer, yöu realise

that void is greater

than matter.

Read this.

Go on. It's not a trick.

Watch this.

Watch closely.

yöu see they're exactly the same signs,

but yöu read them in two different ways.

Sure, depending on the context.

What does that prove?

That the way yöu see things and beings is predigested.

Unconsciously oriented by acquired knowledge,

which can also conceal

certain truths.

yöu might tell me,

"What is truth?"

- What do yöu do in life? - I'm a taxi driver.

I work when I want.

Meaning, not often?

yöu're quite mistaken.

A long time ago...

I was engaged to a yöung woman.

She was very beautiful,

and very rich.

Her family wanted to force me

to enter society,

to elevate me to be her social equal.

I left the girl.

yöu didn't love her?

I did.

Deeply.

I was looking

for something else.

First I went to work in the mines

in the factories.

And then

I hitchhiked to India where I spent seven years.

Then I came back.

I drive a taxi.

Why did yöu leave?

Why do we leave the people we love?

Maybe I was running away.

I was looking for myself.

Did yöu find yöurself?

No. And yöu?

So, what happened?

Nothing.

I cheated on him. I told him and he left.

My daughter is mad.

He's just a little jealous.

It'll work out.

What got into yöu to touch yöurself in the next room

after making love with him?

I wasn't satisfied, that's all.

It could have excited him.

Hardly.

That's something yöu should only do to avoid seeing other men.

And discreetly.

yöu'll learn with age. Love isn't everything in life.

Love of men, in any case.

So yöu had a little fling. Okay.

- But why did yöu tell him? - I was tired of lying.

I'm practicing freedom.

That's a good one.

If anyone finds yöu yöur freedom, send it to me.

We all have moments of freedom.

Often privately.

Meaning, in secret.

We all have our secret lives.

Everyone knows it, everyone pretends not to, and that's fine.

But tell me what about this other man?

I was in a cafe.

I was talking with a stranger, who's no longer a stranger.

We talked for a long while

and I suddenly wanted him.

We went to a hotel.

Listen, daughter.

yöu and Fred have been engaged for six years.

He's smart, he's got a bright future ahead of him.

yöu'll learn to love him.

Usually, yöu're in love first, and all that changes later.

- For yöu it's the opposite. - Do yöu think I'm an idiot?

There are more than love matches. That's a good thing.

Sure, society puts yöu in a cage. But that's how it is.

So choose the most comfortable cage yöu can.

yöur respectable straitjacket is not for me.

Don't get on yöur high horse. It's hard not living like other people.

yöu'll learn that at yöur expense.

yöu all right?

yöu men will never know how good it is.

By the way, I don't even know yöur first name.

And Mr Psychoanalyst only asks now?

And first of all, why?

We met.

We call each other.

yöu teach me lots of interesting things.

We make love.

What's the point of knowing my name?

Just yöur first name.

Sandrine.

I want to know all about yöu.

- Give me a break. - I'm serious. Really.

yöu want to psychoanalyse me?

Not necessarily.

I want to know who yöu are.

I'm not the slightest bit interesting.

I don't even know what yöu do in life.

Nothing.

I'm trying to get off my own beaten paths.

yöu mean that?

And what will yöu live on?

Relax. Not yöur money.

Why do yöu say that?

Oh, shit!

I'm late. I completely forgot. I have to meet a friend.

Excuse me. Honestly.

Come along, if yöu like. I'll introduce yöu. She's a real case.

I almost forgot.

- What do yöu do in life? - I'm in modern dance.

It's a bit special.

I'm invited weekends by little theatres, in yöuth clubs.

And yöu make a living off it?

I get by, more or less. Mostly less.

How did it go with Olivier today?

He cried. In front of the judge, in front of everyone.

- What's going on? - I just divorced.

Olivier is my ex-husband.

We were in court this morning. He started to bawl.

But we had a lovely wedding. Want to see the photos?

Sure. Why not?

What do yöur folks do?

My mother's a psychiatrist.

My father's in real estate. They're separated.

And what does yöur ex-husband do?

He spends his time moving money around.

It doesn't stop him from loving me.

- How long have yöu known him? - 19 years. He's a childhood friend.

- And how long were yöu married? - Two months.

What?

Ten days after the wedding,

I met a guy in my mother's waiting room.

We had sex right off.

It was so good I couldn't help seeing him again.

- But isn't yöur mum a shrink? - That's right.

Didn't yöu ask her advice before yöur marriage?

Sure I did. We phone each other every day.

She told me "I think yöu're a big! girl. "

And yöur father?

All he cares about is money.

So why did yöu get married?

I don't know.

To make my husband happy.

To make everybody happy.

yöu see, until now I'd always had very small orgasms.

Especially with Olivier. Even by touching myself.

I touch myself every day.

But it's always disappointing.

When I met Greg at my mum's...

He's the one I slept with...

I figured that out.

In the beginning, it was great.

We did it again. We had sex all the time.

yöu know I had sex with Sandrine too.

Was it good?

Sure. I think so.

I hope it lasts for yöu two.

For me, my orgasms

were soon only little ones again. Even with him.

Delighted to hear it.

But yöu, yöu're going to be a shrink and yöu sleep with every girl yöu meet?

But never with my patients.

I have a right to a private life.

Say,

know what happened to me?

I was on stage.

The director had a friend in the house.

A guy in his mid to late 30s. Thereabouts.

Good-looking.

Very good-looking, even.

An architect.

When I got home, he called me. He was nice.

He asked if I'd agree to undress in front of him.

I said yes.

So he came over.

He ordered me to strip in front of him.

So I did. It excited me a little.

Then he asked if he could give me a spanking,

saying that I could of course refuse

and that I could stop when I wanted to.

Well, I said okay.

It was a new experience.

So, he hit me with his hands.

Then with his belt, then with a whip.

He kept asking me if I agreed.

It hurt.

But I wanted to keep going. I wanted to go all the way.

And yöu know what?

The truth is it gave me pleasure.

A lot of it.

And yöu did it again often?

Once, sometimes twice a week.

Now it's at his house. And with his wife.

yöu know, I like to please.

When it's over, I feel drained. A bit like today.

This morning in court killed me.

I never understood how yöu could feel pleasure through pain.

yöu never experienced it?

If yöu want,

I'll ask him if yöu can come to one of our sessions.

yöu agree to obey me?

If yöu don't, would yöu tell me?

I'd tell yöu.

Take off yöur panties.

Come over here.

Finger yöurself.

Unclip yöur hair.

Good.

Finger yöurself faster.

Are yöu enjoying it?

A little.

Especially when I'm ordered to and yöu watch.

Then I'll give yöu orders and I'll watch yöu.

Finger yöurself faster.

Stand behind the couch.

Keep fingering yöurself.

Good. Keep going.

Mina, go over to her.

Keep going, Sophie. Good.

Mina, lift her dress. Slap her once hard on her thigh.

Did it hurt?

Harder, Mina, slap her harder!

Again!

Good.

Keep going, Sophie.

Take her dress off, Mina.

Go on.

Keep fingering yöurself, Sophie. Look at me.

Take off yöur dress, Mina.

Keep going, Sophie.

Faster. Faster.

Good.

Kiss her, quick.

Mina, get under her and lick her. Quick.

Sophie, look at me.

I'm going to come over,

take a belt and whip yöu. If yöu don't want to, say so.

Kiss me. Kiss me.

I'm going to take yöu. I'm going to take yöu.

Scratch her!

What do yöu do in life?

I'm an architect.

Actually I'm more interested in decor

and with interiors arranging these decor in' space,

including for the theatre.

That's how I met Sophie.

Did experiments like tonight's start before yöur divorce?

When I told my husband, he wasn't pleased.

He wanted my life to be just with him.

Have children, a family, a middle-class job...

How could I have said yes to that?

Especially when he cheated on me a week after our wedding.

It made me very sad.

We parted because he never wants to see me again.

He even said he was sorry he ever met me.

Personally, I think that when yöu love someone, it's for life.

The proof is, I still love him.

Does loving someone mean refusing new experiences?

Mina and I are often accomplices.

She's a beautiful woman

intelligent, simple,

and very gentle.

And she has one major quality. she obeys.

Only under certain circumstances.

Often in an erotic vein but not only with yöu.

Are yöu the submissive kind?

Not really.

What's the submissive kind?

Someone who, during certain parties, obeys, whatever the order.

Can I ask yöu a question?

Go ahead.

I suppose yöu must get orders that are hard to obey.

Are yöu a masochist?

Then why be obedient all the time?

For the eroticism and the pleasure. It's practical.

yöu're relieved of criticism and real choices.

But I also find a kind of liberation in it.

A liberation? By being obedient all the time?

Freedom isn't something very easy to live with.

Obedience led me to something different,

more profound.

To stop thinking.

That was the first step.

Towards liberation?

To stop thinking is to be free of pain.

A few years ago, I went through a very painful period.

I had a little girl.

I lost her when she was only a few months old.

At that time, I'd already given up all sense of pride,

for my own survival.

But that time I hit rock bottom.

I obeyed people who happened to be around, to help me.

Nuns, yogis.

They gave me simple advice...

Crush my ego. I obeyed.

Without asking yöurself questions?

Without asking myself questions.

And my pain gradually faded.

By becoming a slave?

Not exactly.

By not thinking, my inner defences fell.

So, without even wanting to,

I could find previously hidden realities inside myself.

In fact, my pain was linked to a profound refusal to accept myself.

So the pain slowly diminished.

I gradually felt almost totally free.

I also began to really know my body, and to use it

including as an object of pleasure.

So obedience calmed yöu down.

I stopped thinking. My constant anxiety disappeared.

Don't laugh at the word, but I opened myself up to everything.

I have to be up early tomorrow morning.

yöu can stay.

yöu can stay with our new friends too.

We'll see each other again.

Good night.

See yöu later.

yöu know, he's a really fine man,

but he's also very curious, very hungry for new pleasures.

Meanwhile, my ass hurts.

Right, joke about it.

My back hurts too.

yöu seemed to enjoy being whipped.

Yes, but the orgasm is over.

The pain remains. It's unpleasant.

Want to go back inside to turn yöur pain into pleasure?

Right, joke about it.

Seriously, tonight it hurts more than usual.

Could yöu hypnotise me to soothe the pain?

yöu don't practice hypnosis for fun.

Why not? They say I'm a very docile subject.

yöu often practice hypnosis?

I already told yöu. I'm a psychiatrist.

Certain clinicians such as myself sometimes use this kind of treatment.

Ever hypnotise Sophie?

Do it again. I want to see how it works.

It's nothing spectacular.

yöu put people into a kind of sleep.

yöu give them orders,

yöu wake them up...

and they obey without knowing why.

I want to see for myself. Please.

Mind if we watch?

Not at all. I just want to stop hurting.

Then don't do it again.

Or go see a doctor.

Hypnosis is not a game.

I'm not sick. Hypnotise me.

No way. yöu matter too much to me.

Try it on me.

yöu won't have any problem since yöu don't know me.

I love to watch the stars.

It's one of those simple things that gives me a small idea of infinity,

along with some grandiose poetry at the same time.

Did yöu know the Earth revolves around the sun at 110,OOO km an hour?

And as the entire solar system revolves

at 800,OOO km an hour around the centre of the Milky Way,

we are now moving one million km an hour through space

without realizing it.

If the stars all exploded now,

we'd see the first burst in four and a half years,

and the others gradually over billions of years,

in the time it takes the images to reach us.

If our sun disintegrated,

we'd have to wait eight minutes before seeing it.

yöu think we're alone in the universe?

Probably not.

But do yöu realise,

we're the only living beings in our solar system.

But the other sun closest to us

is four and a half light years away,

or more simply,

four thousand million billion kilometers.

At the speed of 50 km a second,

it's the speed of our space probes.

It would take us at best 25,OOO years

to reach the closest possibly inhabited planet.

Maybe there are secret doors

that allow us to cross space and time in a flash.

Maybe.

yöu talk a lot, yöu know.

But I enjoy listening to yöu.

yöu're like a child. yöu believe what yöu say.

When I'm alone I ramble on even more.

That's why I like yöur presence.

Just before, I went so far

as to start waiting, even hoping

that we'd meet.

I feel small next to yöu.

Meaning?

I ask the questions I asked when I was a kid.

What is a star? Why am I here?

I remember one night, I was walking with my parents,

I was very small.

I wondered what my shadow was. My mum or my dad explained.

We forget, we grow old,

we change.

It's weird. True, I feel good here.

So do I.

Except that at my age, I'm luckier than yöu are.

Tell me...

I'd like to see where yöu live.

yöu really flatter me.

When I was yöung, it was me who'd ask the girls

to come see where I lived.

I just want to know what it's like.

If yöu insist I'll take yöu someday.

I'd really like that.

The next time we meet.

I'll tell yöu

about the stars and their relation to time.

A glass of orange juice, please.

How've yöu been since yöu stopped working?

- Everybody left me. - yöur family?

My family, my boyfriend, everyone. But that's okay.

I'm meeting other people. I'm learning.

What's the important thing yöu have to tell me in person?

yöu got married? yöu're happy?

I'm getting a divorce.

- yöu, too? - What d'yöu mean?

Skip it.

I can only talk to yöu. Everybody will be against me.

It's serious? What's yöur shrink say?

I switched. He started saying things I didn't like.

The new one is better?

I don't tell him anything.

So why do yöu pay him?

I feel better talking to him but only about things I want to.

So I'm the one to whom yöu tell the serious stuff.

I loved my boyfriend.

I was so happy on my wedding day.

But right from the honeymoon I was bored.

Did yöu have sex before then?

Often. And I loved it.

But it wasn't the same then. We didn't live together.

We weren't glued to each other all the time.

Before, we couldn't wait to see each other.

We'd dream, go out to restaurants,

or eat sandwiches in his car.

He was going to be everything. my husband, my lover,

and my very own child.

As soon as I really had all that, it was over.

And yöu still have sex with him?

The worst is at night.

We sit down to eat, we watch TV then we go to bed.

Daily life is just a sea of boredom.

yöu clean and cook?

No, he does.

He loves me so he wants to do everything.

It's worse. When I used to do something, I wasn't bored.

Tell the truth. yöu had another guy?

Not right away.

I met him three weeks later.

I waited before we had sex.

- How long? - Two days.

Does yöur husband know?

What does the other guy do in life?

- He's a smuggler. - Drugs?

Mostly arms dealing.

But he's interested in gold right now. He's going to Latin America,

to Cayenne, where the big deals are made.

And I'm going with him.

What can I do for yöu?

Nothing. I just came to say goodbye.

yöu're leaping without a net.

yöu were madly in love with yöur husband.

My mind's made up.

yöu think I'm crazy?

I can't send yöu my address.

So this is really goodbye?

Give me a kiss?

Please sit down.

yöu look uneasy. Should we stop?

Not at all.

I'd rather consider yöu a bit like a sorcerer.

That would help.

As yöu like. Please sit down.

What do yöu know about hypnosis, Mina?

I used to think it was like magic.

Now I know it's used in psychiatry, in medicine.

Look into my eyes.

Don't look away.

yöu're looking into my eyes.

And now

yöu're beginning to feel calm,

relaxed.

yöu trust me completely.

Now

yöur gaze

is fixed on the tip of this cigarette.

Don't look away from the end of this cigarette.

On no account.

At the same time

yöu're beginning to feel sleepy.

yöur eyelids are heavy.

yöu have to close yöur eyes.

yöur body lets go.

yöu're lying down.

yöu feel good.

yöu're asleep.

yöu're asleep, Mina.

yöu're aware of nothing now,

not so much as a sound.

yöu're only listening to my voice.

yöu're going to obey me.

Aren't yöu, Mina?

Yes.

Good.

When I wake yöu in a moment, yöu will remember nothing.

The four of us will talk

and when I light my cigarette,

yöu'll get up

and go over

and open the umbrella by the fireplace.

Is that understood, Mina?

Good.

Now

hold out yöur arm.

Roll up yöur sleeve.

I'm going to place a coin on yöur arm.

This coin is burning hot.

It's white hot.

I'm going to place it on yöur arm. The burn will hurt very badly.

So badly

that yöu'll probably scream in pain.

But yöu'll leave the coin on yöu arm until I remove it. Is that clear?

So I'm placing the coin on yöur arm.

Keep the coin there.

It's over, Mina.

yöu feel relaxed.

There is no more pain.

It no longer hurts now.

Good.

Now, Mina

I'm going to count to five

and yöu'll wake up.

yöu won't remember a thing,

but yöu will obey the orders I just gave yöu.

Is that clear?

I'm counting to five.

One

two

three

four

five. yöu're awake.

What happened?

yöu fell asleep.

Don't yöu remember?

What should I remember?

Why did yöu open the umbrella?

Because it's pretty.

Why are yöu looking at me like that?

- Can I tell her? - Sure.

While yöu were hypnotised, Greg ordered yöu

to open the umbrella when he lit a cigarette.

This is a joke.

yöu don't remember anything?

Should I remember something else?

I also put a cold, ordinary coin on yöur forearm,

telling yöu it was burning hot.

It hurt so badly yöu almost screamed.

Where did yöu put the coin?

On yöur forearm. yöur left one, I think.

Are yöu kidding me?

- Why? - Look.

yöu burned me badly.

Does it hurt?

Using suggestion, I forbade yöu to feel pain.

But this coin was cold.

The girls can vouch for that.

Are yöu trying to trick us, to upset us?

Why would I do that? And how?

In that case

yöu were so influenced by my suggestions

that yöu unconsciously burned yöurself.

But this sort of phenomenon is very rare.

One out of a hundred. No, out of a million.

What that means, Mina

is that yöu're an exceptional subject.

If I'm such an interesting subject,

why not try other experiments,

and go further this time?

Meaning?

I often have strange dreams of ecstasy.

Violent, mystical ecstasy.

It's something like

an orgasm, only more intense.

Help me.

To do what?

Find out if it exists.

What?

Ecstasy.

Sexual or mystical? It's not the same thing.

How do yöu know?

Even if yöu're right, what's the difference?

Do yöu know?

And yöu?

Nobody knows anything about anything.

The only way to find out is to take a closer look.

yöu're my only chance to do it.

I'm game, too.

And why not me?

We can't control how this will go.

It's okay. We're big girls now.

And if the ecstasy happens to turn erotic, so what?

How about yöu,

got the guts for something like this?

Are yöu all nuts?

We're all adults.

And consenting. And ready to go.

So, shall we?

yöu're asleep.

I'm going to ask yöu

to search yöur memories.

Let yöurself slip back into yöur past.

What do yöu see?

I'm in a forest.

It's hot

very hot.

I'm little

very little.

I'm in a woman's arms.

My mother's.

She's holding me tight,

very tight against her breast.

She's on her knees in a very thick bush.

She lowers her head

but is watching something behind the bushes.

She looks terrified.

What's she doing? Hiding?

She lies down

and puts her hand over my mouth.

She won't let me breathe.

She's suffocating me.

I'm terrified, too.

I hear harsh sounds.

Screams.

Sounds of car doors slamming.

Cars driving away.

Then, silence.

My mother still doesn't dare move. She still holds me tight.

She waits a little longer, then lets me breathe

and gets up.

I'm crying.

My mother is walking along a road,

among people lying there.

And there are men

women and children

cats and dogs,

all lying in their blood.

A few steps away there's a truck.

No.

A bus with signs on it.

No, just written things

but in Arabic script.

I'm in Algeria.

My mother keeps walking,

past people.

No... bodies.

And then, suddenly,

she drops to her knees beside a man.

His throat is strangely red.

She screams.

And I feel her tears dropping on my face.

How old are yöu?

I don't know.

Less than a year old.

Relax a bit.

Think she really can't remember?

How can she go so far into her past?

She's not equipped to imagine what happened

and to remember.

But it rings true.

Think she really went back into her past?

Yes.

What is it, Mina?

Where are yöu?

I'm far back, very far back.

I'm flying through a very beautiful

but strange sky.

I've just opened a door in the sky.

It's full of stars.

I fly to another door that closes behind me.

Where are yöu?

In a castle.

I'm in this castle

lying on the ground,

face down, my arms stretched out.

Keep going.

An old woman is talking. In Flemish.

yöu understand Flemish?

I'm Flemish.

I'm praying now.

Beside me are other girls.

They're lying like me with their arms stretched out.

I think they're nuns.

The two women sitting at the end of the hall, above us

are the mother superiors.

There's a Christ on his cross behind them.

I'm in a convent.

The DŽchaussŽes Convent.

What's going on?

I heard something like a moan,

followed by a strange sound.

So I slowly lift my head and I see

a light that seems to be coming out of the ground.

The two mother superiors look in the same direction.

The light stops.

Then starts again.

Actually,

it seems to come from the body of another sister.

She's lying on her back

her arms outstretched but slightly bent.

A noise.

The sister moans.

Her head is thrown back

and her neck supports the rest of her body.

Her face expresses both intense pain and ecstasy.

The other girls lift their heads and look, too.

The two mother superiors say,

"Sisters we're going to interrupt prayer. "

"Don't worry about Sister Katerina. We'll take care of her. "

Now rise and go to yöur cells.

The girls obey,

more or less pushing and shoving.

I'm one of the last.

Suddenly,

I feel a harsh light behind me.

I turn around.

Sister Katerina's face is all white

all lit up.

She's not moving.

There is a strange silence.

I can't hear the girls or anything else now.

I look at Katerina.

I see her rise slowly.

The mother superiors are stunned.

Katerina slowly continues to rise.

The others try to hold her down and even push her back to the floor.

One girl sits on her stomach to hold her down.

She's caught in the rising movement.

She's terrified.

She can't speak or scream.

Both remain there a few minutes above the ground.

Then they come down.

It's over.

I saw total ecstasy on Sister Katerina's face.

It looked like intense happiness.

I'm going to count to five now

and yöu'll wake up.

yöu'll remember everything yöu've just been through.

I want to feel that ecstasy.

I thought yöu were beyond all that.

yöu can't understand.

It's so much more.

Hypnotise me again.

Hypnotise me, too.

Why?

yöu hear what she just said? There's nothing more to say.

What she describes looks like

the ultimate orgasm, total fusion.

I've always wanted that.

I won't miss out on the experience.

Me neither.

yöu're all maniacs.

She's describing mystical ecstasy.

There's nothing sexual about it.

I want to know both.

yöur eyelids are getting heavy.

Close yöur eyes.

Now yöur body is letting go.

yöu feel good.

The three of yöu

are going to feel the most violent ecstasy yöu've ever known.

Then yöu'll wake up.

Come on.

yöu're very early, yöung lady.

Say something. Tell me about yöur stars.

Show me yöur house, like yöu promised.

Are yöu that unhappy?

I rushed into a new life...

Sometimes, I'm afraid.

God loves those who dare.

- I don't believe in God. - Neither do I.

But sometimes it's useful to find a word

to talk about certain things we don't know.

Won't yöu tell me a little more about yöurself?

Talk to me about yöur stars, please.

The stars.

I love it when yöu laugh.

The sound of my shout

spreads at 360 metres a second along the boulevard.

Supposing yöu could travel faster than the sound.

yöu shall overtake it

and hear it again.

On the other hand

had yöu started before it,

at this same speed, at 400 metres a second

the shout wouldn't overtake yöu and yöu wouldn't hear a thing.

yöu understand?

I think so.

During the last century,

physicists all thought the same was true of light.

Not at all.

yöu can't catch light.

yöu can't pass light.

It's an absolute.

Did yöu learn that in India?

No, I learned meditation in India.

Which means, to stop thinking.

But before all that

when I still had hair

I was a physics teacher.

Go on with what yöu were saying.

Come on.

Einstein came up with a rather disturbing explanatory model.

According to this model,

the time we live the speed we move! at,

the space we occupy

are relative to our speed.

Suppose we have the same watch,

set in the same way.

yöu travel by plane, I stay here.

yöur watch goes less fast

because the time each of us lives in is different.

Obviously, the difference is minute.

So minute

we can't detect it.

But if I now flew in a rocket

at 990% of the speed of light

and came back to Earth a day later,

yöu will have lived 18 years,

and me, 24 hours.

The space I occupy, during that time, would become very small,

but my mass, let's say my body,

would be harder to pull than a thousand freight trains.

Am I boring yöu?

Taking this theory to its conclusion, we come to think that at the beginning,

the universe was just a quantity of matter

no bigger than a ping-pong ball which exploded...

10 to 20 billion years ago. Let's say 14, more likely.

It took 4 billion years for the Milky Way, our galaxy, to appear.

10 before the birth of the solar system.

Our Earth dates back 4.5 billion years.

In the beginning, we could have touched the Moon with our hand.

The Earth cooled off

but...

it took one or two billion years to create the atmosphere,

then water.

Reptiles date from two or three billion years.

Man, probably a million.

Imagine that all this time is represented by a 24-hour day.

The Stone Age would begin at five minutes to midnight,

virtually at the end of the 24 hours.

The birth of Christ at one minute to midnight.

Most surprising of all,

we are here, we human beings,

tiny bubbles

lost in the immensity,

and we have the capacity to understand all that.

Because the miracle

is that all is logic.

If there is a god,

he may not be a softie,

but he's certainly a very good mathematician.

Come in.

Want something to drink?

I haven't much to offer. Just water or cider.

Cider.

The main lifeline of the universe.

From the Big Bang to the dinosaur.

The thickness of the red line next to the dinosaur

equals one million years.

Mankind's entire past.

And the crucifix?

What about it?

I thought yöu didn't believe in anything.

I don't believe in a god conceivable to the human mind

that's all.

Even that I have doubts about.

- Here's to yöu. - To the two of us.

Come in.

Thanks for coming.

I just had to speak to yöu.

Please.

Something fantastic is happening to me.

First, I have to tell yöu...

I'm in love with Mina.

I hope yöu won't be angry with me.

And her?

She feels the same.

yöu have to understand.

I feel like

I've happened on a subject

that I'll never find again.

I'll try to take her very far into the unknown, and follow her there.

That's risky.

Maybe.

But we don't care.

Please

put yöur jealousy aside.

First I have to tell yöu...

Remember when she had that orgasm under hypnosis?

She wasn't the only one.

If yöu advertised female pleasure, yöu'd be overrun.

I'm serious, Sandrine.

What she describes

is close to the state of bliss certain mystics speak of.

Remember her second memory?

She mentioned a convent. I checked.

It could be a Belgian convent

where nuns experienced ecstatic states that they tried to hide.

That was in the 14th century.

Mina could have copied them.

Those saints never interested her.

She doesn't know they exist or what their names are.

Why tell me all this?

I want to put her under hypnosis,

to suggest she reach a strong orgasm, without gimmicks.

No women, no caresses no men, nothing.

Katerina and the others were in love with a guy dead for 14 centuries.

So what?

Remember the violent ecstasy last time?

yöu'll do it again, but this time

without yöur hands, without anyone to help yöu.

yöu'll go beyond,

then go into ecstasy

like the nun yöu saw in the Flemish convent.

yöu understand me, Mina?

Remember

yöur most violent orgasm.

yöu'll go beyond it.

Start.

Where are yöu, Mina?

Inside myself.

The heat of my body is dropping.

I feel an incredible mellowness.

My heart is slowing down.

Her pulse is very low.

My eyes see nothing now.

An inner force makes me shut them.

My senses and my body are indifferent to me.

I feel driven

toward a kind of glory.

A glorious world.

I'm in pain

yet I'm immersed in a sea of bliss.

I'm one great joy.

I hear...

"My daughter, yöur soul no longer lives. "

"It is I who lives in it. "

Who's speaking to yöu?

Mina, who is it?

I don't know.

There's no name.

Words don't fit.

Now I feel

stuck between two worlds.

The one I come from

and which I'm not part of now,

and the other indescribable world

to which I am being abducted.

Keep going.

What do yöu feel?

Tell me. Where are yöu?

What's going on now?

Try to say it.

Mina,...

wake up.

Books, objects, everything went flying.

Then, suddenly, everything calmed down.

And yöur friend Mina?

She no longer speaks. She just wants to go into a convent.

A convent? Did she do it?

I don't know.

yöur friend should have been more careful.

What arrogance!

What self-importance!

But yöu know, I'm a bit like them.

Maybe a bit calmer, at peace.

Then yöu understand what happened?

My mentors would have told yöu

that yöur two friends, out of stupidity,

unleashed some very powerful negative forces.

And what do yöu think?

I don't know.

I thought yöu knew it all, but yöu don't know a thing.

How right yöu are.

What is life

what is pleasure,

what is love?

Look at this landscape.

What does it inspire in yöu?

A feeling of calm and harmony.

As it does for me.

But, and yöu know this,

it's first of all emptiness,

yet at the same time filled with plants and insects,

and thousands of animals that devour each other to survive.

The plants grow

thanks to the light, thanks to the sun.

But the balance, the harmony

depends on never-ending savagery and murder.

Maybe we're nothing more

than silly accidents in the universe.

Or else

fallen angels.

Fallen from what?

I don't know.

"Hope You've Liked & Enjoyed The Movie"