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Short filmTranscript
00:00The love story between these two men was based on letters and poetry in the 18th century.
00:06Both were the greatest and most famous poets in France at that time.
00:10However, their relationship was full of unexpected twists and turns, sometimes passionate and sometimes violent.
00:18Despite all that, their poetry forever revolutionized the face of modern poetry.
00:24This movie tells the story of two poets named Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud.
00:29It is directly taken from their letters and poetry.
00:33In September 1871, a young Rimbaud sends his poetry to Verlaine from his home in the provinces.
00:40At that time, Verlaine is a well-established poet in Paris.
00:45Seeing his extraordinary masterpiece, Verlaine is immediately fascinated
00:50and impulsively invites Rimbaud to the house of his wealthy father-in-law, Mr. Maudin in Paris.
00:57Rimbaud accepts the invitation and makes his way there.
01:01Once there, he meets Verlaine's young and pregnant wife, Mathilde Maudin, and her mother.
01:07Rimbaud asks where Verlaine is, but Mathilde says that he went to this station to meet him.
01:13After Verlaine returns home, all of them are having lunch together.
01:18Verlaine asks Rimbaud how old he is, and he replies that he is 16.
01:24It is revealed that Rimbaud lied to him by saying he was 21 in his letter.
01:29However, the wild and eccentric Rimbaud shows absolutely no manners or courtesy during the lunch,
01:35as he came from a remote province of France.
01:38Verlaine and Rimbaud have a drink at the bar, where the two talk share their thoughts about Mathilde.
01:44The next day, Verlaine urges Rimbaud to publish his poetry, but Rimbaud refuses.
01:50He says that the only thing that matters is the writing itself.
01:54Rimbaud does not believe in love either, and says that it has to be reinvented.
01:59At night, Verlaine is in his bedroom with Mathilde trying to understand the meaning of his poetry.
02:05Meanwhile, Rimbaud is messing around with Mr. Maudin's collectibles.
02:10He even barks like a dog at the small dog statue and breaks it for some reason.
02:15He then takes one of the preserved butterflies and puts it on his clothes.
02:19Shortly after that, Mr. Maudin suddenly comes back home and sees Rimbaud sitting on the couch.
02:26Rimbaud does not recognize him at first, even innocently calling him old boy.
02:32After learning the man is Mr. Maudin, Rimbaud simply tells him that he just broke one of his dog statues,
02:39stating that dogs are all liberals.
02:42Because of all these strange actions, Mr. Maudin kicks Rimbaud out of the house.
02:47He then informs Verlaine about it, and Verlaine is shocked to hear that.
02:52Verlaine immediately searches for Rimbaud and finally finds him sitting on a bench outside the house.
02:59Having no control over the house, Verlaine rents out a room for Rimbaud at a nearby inn.
03:05As Verlaine walks home, the naked Rimbaud comes out from his window and deliberately throws his clothes near Verlaine.
03:13Since then, Verlaine has become interested in the unique originality of Rimbaud's mind.
03:19When he gets home, Verlaine appears to be offended after hearing Mathilde's words about Rimbaud.
03:25As a result, Verlaine throws Mathilde to the floor.
03:28However, his actions are discovered by Mr. Maudin and his wife, who suddenly enter their room.
03:35At that point, it seems that Verlaine's sadistic nature begins to emerge.
03:40Later, Verlaine and Rimbaud go to the gathering of artists in the city.
03:44Rimbaud gets acquainted with Verlaine's friends.
03:47While one of them is reciting a poem, Rimbaud suddenly makes a commotion.
03:52He fights with the others and gets on the table to run around.
03:56Rimbaud also pees on one of the poems,
03:59criticizing that the artists in the bourgeois city are even more bourgeois than the bourgeoisie.
04:05Verlaine and Rimbaud return to the inn, and they kiss for the first time.
04:10The two also spend the night together.
04:12The next day, Verlaine arrives at his house and finds that his son has been born.
04:17He starts treating Mathilde harshly, but she does not let herself get hurt this time.
04:23On the other hand, Rimbaud goes back to his hometown and meets his younger sister, Isabel, as well as his mother.
04:31He only stays at his house for a day to meet his family before returning to Paris again.
04:37Soon the 27-year-old Verlaine is finally seduced by Rimbaud's physical body.
04:43Both of them sleep together for one night.
04:46The following morning, a drunk Verlaine returns home to see Mathilde and their son.
04:52Apparently, he intends to harass her again.
04:55Verlaine slams the pram with their son inside against the wall and chokes Mathilde.
05:00Not only that, he also sets fire to Mathilde's hair for his gratification.
05:05A few moments later, Verlaine and Rimbaud meet at a bar.
05:09Verlaine tells Rimbaud that he actually loves him, but he also loves Mathilde.
05:15Rimbaud asks him to put his hand on the table with palm upwards.
05:19He then takes a knife and uses it to stab Verlaine's palm.
05:23Both of them seem to be enjoying how they feel about each other now.
05:27The two sleep together again for another night.
05:30Rimbaud tells Verlaine that they have to leave somewhere, saying he wants to see the sun.
05:36He feels that running away from home could make him happy.
05:40Soon both of them go to the wild and spend their time together.
05:44They do a lot of weird things, one of which is mimicking the wild goats.
05:49Rimbaud also runs into the sea with his clothes on, which is one of his dreams from long ago.
05:55One year later, the two have moved to Brussels, Belgium.
05:59One day, Verlaine quietly leaves the sleeping Rimbaud to meet Mathilde,
06:04who turns out to be following him to Belgium.
06:07However, Rimbaud knows what Verlaine is going to do.
06:10Mathilde finally has a brief reconciliation with Verlaine.
06:14Verlaine tells Mathilde that he abandoned her and their son for a year,
06:18because he was afraid he would be arrested.
06:21Mathilde suggests that they emigrate to New Caledonia, where many of Verlaine's friends live there.
06:27She also says that it would be easier for Verlaine if he wants to stop drinking.
06:32When Mathilde leaves the room to get her things ready,
06:35she meets Rimbaud who is waiting for Verlaine outside.
06:39Mathilde tells him that she and Verlaine have decided to live together again.
06:44Hearing this, Rimbaud confronts Verlaine in the room.
06:48The two quarrel for a while, and Rimbaud reluctantly allows Verlaine to leave with Mathilde.
06:54Verlaine and Mathilde finally board a train.
06:57When they reach the border station, Verlaine sees Rimbaud following him on another train.
07:03Apparently, Verlaine and Rimbaud have planned to run away together when they had a fight in Belgium.
07:09Because of that, Rimbaud boards the same train as Rimbaud.
07:13He ditches Mathilde alone in the other train and makes fun of her.
07:17A few months after the incident, the two have moved to England.
07:21After reading Rimbaud's poem, Verlaine wonders why Rimbaud chose to write to him,
07:26because he could never understand his writings.
07:29Rimbaud says that he has always known what to say in his poem,
07:33but Verlaine always knows how to say it.
07:36Sometime later, Verlaine tells Rimbaud that he received a letter from Mathilde's lawyer.
07:42Mathilde has applied for legal separation
07:45on grounds that Verlaine and Rimbaud are indulging in immoral relations.
07:50One morning, Verlaine goes to the market to buy a fish.
07:54As he approaches his house, Rimbaud says bad things to Verlaine from the window,
07:59even making jokes with him.
08:01Seeing this, Verlaine, who is not in the mood,
08:04takes this seriously and throws the fish at Rimbaud, breaking the window pane.
08:09Consequently, Verlaine rushes to the dock and decides to return to Belgium by boat,
08:14leaving Rimbaud alone in England.
08:17Several days later, Rimbaud eventually makes his way back to Belgium to see Verlaine.
08:23However, the two immediately fight.
08:26Verlaine apologizes to Rimbaud and promises not to leave him again,
08:30saying he was very angry at that time.
08:33The next morning, Verlaine gets drunk in a café after buying a gun.
08:38When he returns home, he sees Rimbaud packing his belongings
08:41as he wants to come back to his hometown.
08:44On the other hand, Verlaine have decided that both of them are going back to England.
08:49Although Verlaine persuades him to stay with him, Rimbaud insists on leaving him.
08:54At that moment, Rimbaud's psychological torture of Verlaine intensifies.
08:59An enraged Verlaine points his gun at Rimbaud and eventually shoots his left hand.
09:04The court suspects Verlaine whether he has a relationship with Rimbaud other than friendship.
09:10However, Verlaine denies it and says that he regrets his actions.
09:15After examining Verlaine's body,
09:17both doctors find that Verlaine has recently indulged in both active and passive sodomy.
09:24Because of that, Verlaine is sentenced a fine of 200 francs
09:28and two years in prison for sodomy and grievous bodily harm.
09:33In the meantime, the doctors are taking out the bullet from Rimbaud's wound.
09:38After the accident, Rimbaud returns to his hometown again.
09:41From then on, he feels very lonely,
09:44just like Verlaine who also experiences loneliness behind the bars.
09:49Rimbaud continues to write letters and poems day after day
09:53until Verlaine is released from prison two years later.
09:57The two eventually meet in Black Forest, Germany.
10:00Verlaine claims that he has converted to Christianity while he was in prison.
10:05He hopes that Rimbaud can follow his example to experience God's help,
10:10just like when he was imprisoned.
10:12The reason he came to see Rimbaud was because he wanted Rimbaud to find some direction in his life.
10:19Verlaine also hopes that God may help Rimbaud to achieve his aims,
10:23but Rimbaud says that he does not have it at all.
10:27Rimbaud finally states that he has stopped writing because he has nothing more to say.
10:32Rimbaud thought that what he did would make a difference and change the world,
10:37but he realizes that was not good.
10:39In the end of their conversation, Verlaine wants the two of them to go away together.
10:44However, Rimbaud tells him that he will have to find somebody else.
10:49This shows that their attempt to revive the relationship are ultimately in vain.
10:54Verlaine and Rimbaud part ways and never see each other again for the rest of their lives.
10:59After his separation from Verlaine, Rimbaud bitterly renounces literature in any form.
11:05It can be seen that Rimbaud travels the world alone, eventually living in Abyssinia.
11:11It is called Ethiopia in the modern day.
11:14While walking though the big rocks, Rimbaud suddenly stumbles and injures his leg from being hit by a rock.
11:22He then sees a boy in the distance, perhaps who would become his young lover in Abyssinia.
11:27When he gets home, Rimbaud's leg is being treated by his mistress.
11:32Several years after Rimbaud's death, the older Verlaine meets Isabel in a cafe in Paris.
11:38Isabel says that she and her mother want Verlaine to hand over any copies he may still have of Rimbaud's poems.
11:46They want to burn them for fear of the lewdness of Rimbaud's writings.
11:50Isabel speaks frankly that a number of poems Rimbaud wrote in his extreme youth were quite indecent.
11:57Apart from that, Isabel asserts that Rimbaud was converted to Christianity right before he died.
12:04She reasoned with him and prayed for him for weeks while he was ill.
12:08At one moment, Rimbaud asked for a confession from a priest.
12:12This is the main reason why only the censored versions of Rimbaud's poetry should survive.
12:18Verlaine then asks Isabel what had happened to Rimbaud before he died.
12:23The scene shifts back to the ailing Rimbaud, who has a tumor on his right knee moments later after he stumbled.
12:30There is no doctor there, and Rimbaud would not leave his work.
12:34Instead, he insists on staying until the pain becomes unbearable.
12:39Because of this situation, Rimbaud plans to go back to France to treat his serious injuries.
12:46He designs a litter and hires ten people to take him to the coast.
12:50Unfortunately, the journey takes more than two weeks for him to arrive in France.
12:55Before leaving, Rimbaud meets the boy he saw earlier.
12:59Long story short, Rimbaud is taken to the hospital in Marseilles as soon as he arrives.
13:05Sadly, his leg has to be amputated because his severe wound can no longer be healed.
13:12Rimbaud lives in his family's house for a month, where Isabel attempts to take care of him every day.
13:18For some reason, he keeps saying that he has to travel back towards the sun and that the sun would heal him.
13:25Nevertheless, his tumor grows into a cancer and spreads throughout his body.
13:30Rimbaud eventually dies at the age of 37.
13:34After hearing the rest of Rimbaud's life story, Verlaine pretends to agree to help Isabel and her mother.
13:40Before leaving, Isabel gives her business card to Verlaine,
13:44reminding him that they have to make a very careful selection about which poems would survive.
13:50However, Verlaine instead tears up her business card after she leaves.
13:55He then orders two absinthes, to which he has become addicted,
13:59and somehow sees a vision of the 16-year-old Rimbaud.
14:04Rimbaud expresses the love and respect which Verlaine has earned after Rimbaud's death.
14:10The movie ends with a young Rimbaud walking alone on a mountain range and carrying a white cloth.
14:16At the same time, Verlaine narrates that he sees Rimbaud every night since his death,
14:22proclaiming that they are both happy together.
14:25Rimbaud also claims that he has finally found eternity, which is the sun mingles with the sea.