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This is the story of a man
marked by an image from his childhood.
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The violent scene that upset him,
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00:02:02,372 --> 00:02:05,917
and whose meaning
he was to grasp only years later,
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happened on the observation deck
at Orly Airport
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a few years
before the outbreak of World War III.
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Parents take their children to Orly
on Sunday to watch the departing planes.
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00:02:29,358 --> 00:02:31,317
Of this particular Sunday,
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the child whose story
we're about to tell
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would long remember the frozen sun,
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the setting at the end of the deck,
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and a woman's face.
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Nothing distinguishes memories
from ordinary moments.
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Only later do they become memorable
by the scars they leave.
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That face was to be
the only image from peacetime
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to survive the war.
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He often wondered
if he'd really seen it
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or just invented
that tender moment
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to counter the moments
of madness to follow.
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The sudden roar,
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the woman's gesture,
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the crumpling body,
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and the cries of the crowd,
blurred by fear.
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00:03:18,115 --> 00:03:22,243
Later he realized
that he'd seen a man die.
25
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Soon afterwards,
Paris was destroyed.
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Many died.
27
00:04:41,907 --> 00:04:44,325
Some considered themselves victors.
28
00:04:44,451 --> 00:04:46,577
Others were taken prisoner.
29
00:04:46,995 --> 00:04:50,915
The survivors settled in underground
passages beneath Chaillot.
30
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Aboveground, Paris,
like most of the world,
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00:04:58,340 --> 00:05:02,510
was uninhabitable,
riddled with radioactivity.
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00:05:03,387 --> 00:05:06,138
The victors stood guard
over a kingdom of rats.
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Prisoners were subjected
to experiments
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00:05:13,021 --> 00:05:16,524
apparently of great concern
to those who conducted them.
35
00:05:49,391 --> 00:05:53,060
The outcome was disappointment
for the experimenters,
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00:05:53,645 --> 00:05:56,063
and for the subjects,
either death
37
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or madness.
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One day they came to select a new
guinea pig from among the prisoners.
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He was the man whose story
we are now telling.
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He was frightened.
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00:07:22,984 --> 00:07:25,611
He had heard
about the head experimenter
42
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and was prepared
to face the mad scientist
43
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or Dr. Frankenstein.
44
00:07:31,576 --> 00:07:33,494
Instead, he found
a reasonable man
45
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who calmly explained
that the human race was doomed.
46
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Space was out of the question.
47
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The only hope for survival
lay in time.
48
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A loophole in time
might make it possible
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to reach food, medicine, energy.
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This was the aim of the experiments:
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to send emissaries into time
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to summon past and future
to the rescue of the present.
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But the human mind recoiled.
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To wake up in another time
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was to be born again, as an adult.
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The shock was too great.
57
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After sending lifeless or unconscious
bodies into different time zones,
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the inventors now focused on men
with powerful mental images.
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lf they could conceive of
or dream of another time,
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perhaps they would be able
to enter into it.
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The camp police spied
even on dreams.
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This man was selected
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due to his fixation
on an image from his past.
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First, the present and all its supports
must be stripped away.
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They start again.
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The subject doesn't die
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or go mad.
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He suffers.
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They continue.
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On the tenth day,
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images begin to well up
like confessions.
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A peacetime morning.
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A peacetime bedroom.
A real bedroom.
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Real children.
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Real birds.
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Real cats.
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Real graves.
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00:11:42,452 --> 00:11:45,245
On the 1 6th day,
he's on the observation deck.
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lt's empty.
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Sometimes he finds
a day of happiness,
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but it's a different one.
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A happy face,
but it's a different one.
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Ruins.
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A girl who could be
the one he seeks.
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He crosses her path
on the observation deck.
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00:12:20,782 --> 00:12:22,950
She smiles at him from a car.
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Other images pour out
and mix
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in a museum
that is perhaps his memory.
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On the 30th day,
the meeting takes place.
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This time he's sure
he recognizes her.
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ln fact, it's the only thing
he's sure of
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in this timeless world
that amazes him with its riches.
93
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All around him
are astonishing materials:
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glass, plastic,
95
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terry cloth.
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When he shakes off his fascination,
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the woman has disappeared.
98
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The experimenters tighten their control
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and send him back on the trail.
100
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Time rolls back again.
The moment returns.
101
00:14:18,983 --> 00:14:22,444
This time he's close to her
and speaks to her.
102
00:14:22,570 --> 00:14:24,905
She greets him without surprise.
103
00:14:26,407 --> 00:14:29,076
They have no memories, no plans.
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00:14:29,536 --> 00:14:32,621
Time takes shape
painlessly around them.
105
00:14:32,747 --> 00:14:35,582
Their sole landmarks
are the taste of the moment
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and the markings on the walls.
107
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Later they're in a garden.
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Ηe remembers that there were gardens.
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She asks him about his necklace,
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the combat necklace he wore at the start
of the war that is to break out someday.
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He makes up an explanation.
112
00:15:39,230 --> 00:15:43,400
They stop before a redwood trunk
marked with historical dates.
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She mentions a foreign name
he doesn't understand.
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As in a dream, he points beyond
the tree trunk and hears himself say,
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"That's where l come from"...
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and falls back, exhausted.
117
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Then another wave of time lifts him up.
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They probably give him another shot.
119
00:16:26,694 --> 00:16:29,196
Now she lies sleeping in the sun.
120
00:16:37,705 --> 00:16:40,832
He thinks that,
in the time it took him
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to return to her world, she died.
122
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She wakes up.
Ηe speaks to her again.
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00:16:55,348 --> 00:16:58,016
The truth being
too fantastic to be believed,
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00:16:58,142 --> 00:17:01,353
he mentions only the essentials:
a distant land,
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a long way to travel.
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She listens and doesn't laugh.
127
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ls it the same day?
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Ηe no longer knows.
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They'll take countless walks
like this one,
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and an unspoken trust
will grow between them,
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trust in its purest form.
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No memories, no plans,
until the moment he senses
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a barrier ahead.
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00:18:06,294 --> 00:18:09,463
Thus the first set of experiments
came to an end.
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00:18:14,135 --> 00:18:16,511
lt was the starting point
for a series of tests
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in which he'd meet her
at different times.
137
00:18:24,520 --> 00:18:28,356
He meets her a few times
before their markings on the walls.
138
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She welcomes him simply.
139
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She calls him her ghost.
140
00:18:41,913 --> 00:18:43,830
One day she seems frightened.
141
00:18:46,918 --> 00:18:49,419
One day she leans over him.
142
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He never knows
whether he moves toward her
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or is pushed,
144
00:18:57,261 --> 00:19:00,889
whether he's made it all up
or is only dreaming.
145
00:20:02,577 --> 00:20:04,744
Around the 50th day,
146
00:20:05,079 --> 00:20:08,790
they meet in a museum
filled with ageless animals.
147
00:20:36,110 --> 00:20:39,446
Now their aim is perfect.
148
00:20:39,989 --> 00:20:42,282
They can aim him at a given moment,
149
00:20:42,450 --> 00:20:45,410
and he can stay there
and move around at ease.
150
00:22:20,047 --> 00:22:22,298
She too seems to have adjusted.
151
00:22:30,891 --> 00:22:34,936
She accepts the ways of this visitor
as a natural phenomenon,
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00:22:35,062 --> 00:22:39,107
how he comes and goes,
exists, talks,
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laughs with her, falls silent,
listens to her,
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and then vanishes.
155
00:23:39,752 --> 00:23:42,587
Once back in the laboratory,
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00:23:42,713 --> 00:23:45,965
he sensed that something
had changed.
157
00:23:46,342 --> 00:23:48,635
The camp director was there.
158
00:23:49,512 --> 00:23:52,138
From what was said around him,
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00:23:52,264 --> 00:23:55,600
he gathered that after the success
of the experiments in the past,
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00:23:55,726 --> 00:23:59,145
they now meant
to launch him into the future.
161
00:23:59,271 --> 00:24:02,148
His excitement
made him forget for a moment
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that the meeting in the museum
was their last.
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The future was better armored
than the past.
164
00:24:18,499 --> 00:24:21,793
After several
even more grueling attempts,
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00:24:21,919 --> 00:24:25,088
he eventually caught
some waves of the world to come.
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He crossed a planet transformed...
167
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with Paris rebuilt...
168
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10,000 incomprehensible streets.
169
00:24:42,273 --> 00:24:44,607
Others were waiting for him.
170
00:24:48,195 --> 00:24:50,530
lt was a brief encounter.
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00:24:50,656 --> 00:24:54,659
They clearly refused
this slag from another time.
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He recited his lesson:
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Since humanity had survived,
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it couldn't refuse to its own past
the means of its own survival.
175
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This sophism was taken
for fate in disguise.
176
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They gave him a power unit
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00:25:29,904 --> 00:25:33,448
strong enough to set
all human industry in motion again.
178
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Then the gates of the future
closed once again.
179
00:25:45,502 --> 00:25:47,795
Shortly after his return,
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00:25:47,922 --> 00:25:50,673
he was transferred
to another part of the camp.
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He knew his jailers
would not spare him.
182
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He'd been a tool in their hands.
183
00:25:57,264 --> 00:26:01,434
His childhood image
had served as bait to train him.
184
00:26:01,560 --> 00:26:04,729
He'd lived up to their expectations
and played his part.
185
00:26:04,855 --> 00:26:07,398
Now he only waited to be executed,
186
00:26:07,524 --> 00:26:12,362
with the memory of a twice-lived
moment in time somewhere inside him.
187
00:26:14,114 --> 00:26:18,284
Deep in this limbo, he received word
from the people of the future.
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They too could travel through time,
189
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and more easily.
190
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There they were,
191
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ready to accept him
as one of their own.
192
00:26:33,259 --> 00:26:35,802
But he had a different request.
193
00:26:36,345 --> 00:26:39,097
Rather than that pacified future,
194
00:26:39,223 --> 00:26:43,268
he asked to be returned
to the world of his childhood
195
00:26:43,769 --> 00:26:46,980
and that woman
who might be waiting for him.
196
00:26:52,987 --> 00:26:55,113
Once again
on the observation deck at Orly...
197
00:26:56,240 --> 00:27:00,076
on this warm Sunday before the war
where he could now stay,
198
00:27:00,202 --> 00:27:02,996
he thought confusedly
how the child he'd been
199
00:27:03,122 --> 00:27:07,166
must be there too,
watching the planes.
200
00:27:07,751 --> 00:27:09,961
But first he sought out
a woman's face
201
00:27:10,087 --> 00:27:12,672
at the end of the deck.
202
00:27:32,318 --> 00:27:34,193
He ran toward her.
203
00:27:34,361 --> 00:27:37,280
And when he recognized the man
who'd trailed him from the camp,
204
00:27:38,490 --> 00:27:41,034
he realized there was
no escape from time,
205
00:27:41,744 --> 00:27:45,121
and that that moment
he'd been granted to see as a child,
206
00:27:45,581 --> 00:27:48,291
and that had obsessed him
forever after...
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was the moment of his own death.
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00:27:59,594 --> 00:28:06,594