Plot: Christmas Eve, 1937, Piatra Neamt, Romania: Dominic Matei, a 70-year-old professor, contemplates suicide. The love of his life is dead, and he remains unable to complete his life's work on the origins of language. On April 24th 1938, Easter Sunday, he takes a train to Bucharest to kill himself, but suddenly he's struck by lightning. After a slow recovery, he miraculously grows younger and gains superhuman powers. WWII breaks out and Romania's fascist dictator Ion Antonescu cooperates with Adolf Hitler. Matei must escape to Switzerland, because Nazi scientists want to use his powers...Some years later, he meets a woman who has her own passage through a lightning storm. Not only does Dominic find love again, but her new abilities hold the key to his research...Coppola's adaptation of Mircea Eliade's surreal novella is a mysterious, romantic, melancholic and humorous journey to the outer limits of space, time and identity. Dreams become reality and reality feels like a dream...
Alternative Plot: In Romania in the late 1930s, Dominic (Tim Roth) is an old man who has sacrificed everything -- including the love of his life, Laura (Alexandra Maria Lara) -- in his study of the origin of language. He is planning his suicide when a bolt of lightning reduces his age and magnifies his brain power. Dominic is sent to Switzerland to elude the Nazis. There, years later, he meets a woman who looks like Laura. Through her he goes on a surreal, metaphysical exploration of language, life and reality.
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