Struck one by one

Sasha, a desperate 28-year-old Russian, is the night guardian at a sordid Parisian hotel. The only dream that gives him the strength to keep going is seeing the love of his life, Sam. He has never been able to accept her sudden disappearance when they were supposed to meet on a train platform so she could to flee her jealous boyfriend, Ben. But, despite his determination, a dark cloud continues to follow Sasha, who finds himself mixed up in a hellish mess and confronted with Ben’s questionable company. With no other choice than to flee to escape someone settling the score, Sasha arrives in Berlin and gets into a heated chase in the parks of the German capital. Haggard and lost, he meets Sophie, a rebellious but touching teenager who will not leave him alone. A series of crazy events from the Spree to the Seine will follow until the unexpected finale on the Normandy coast.

The character Sasha, is a sort-of contemporary Antoine Doinel , who cherishes the thrill of being in love. Jeremias Nussbaum will yet again explore the theme of people who live on the fringe and are ill-at-ease with themselves. Such are these two scatterbrains united on this road trip. Sasha and Sophie make up a desperate but touching tandem. This is a film for those who were fans of Jacques Prévert. The title of the film even borrows the title of one of his poems.

“Three matches one by one struck in the night
The first to see your face in its entirety
The second to see your eyes
The last to see your mouth
And the darkness all around to remind me of all these
As I hold you in my arms.”
Jacques Prévert

Backstory

Varying between a thriller and suspense, between a burlesque comedy and sentimental drama, “Struck one by one” intentionally chooses to cover the tracks of these genres so as to better decipher what seems to drive us.
The characters of this film are much more complex than they seem. Under the guise of being an anti-hero, Sasha tells us all about the difficulty of being an adolescent to becoming an adult. He also evokes the challenges of love. A story of initiation, of rejecting the maternal image, or even looking back on one’s roots, “Struck one by one“ undertakes major contemporary interrogations in the form of a melancholic and satirical theatrical fable.