Saved by the Book

A few months ago, I was reading Francois Truffaut's book-length interview with Alfred Hitchcock and was reminded of the scene in 1938's The 39 Steps where Robert Donat's character's life is saved because a hymn book in his pocket stops a bullet.

Alfred Hitchcock: . . . What I like in The Thirty-nine Steps are the swift transitions. Robert Donat decides to go to the police to tell them that the man with the missing finger tried to kill him and how the Bible saved his life, but they don't believe him and suddenly he finds himself in handcuffs. How will he get out of them?

After reading this, I seemed to come across again and again what TV Tropes calls the "Pocket Protector". I can recall three movies I watched this year by name that have it--Burton's Sleepy Hollow, Plunkett and Macleane, and Rainy Dog. The first two of those movies were both released in 1999 and were set in the 18th century while Rainy Dog came out in 1997 and was set in contemporary Taipei.

Maybe it's a measure of the religious leanings of Western audiences that over sixty years after a hymn book saved the hero in The 39 Steps it's a book of witchcraft that saves the hero in Sleepy Hollow while a villain is saved in Plunkett and Macleane by a nice thick bible. Or maybe it's just a sign of the kind of movies I end up watching.

It's a villain that's saved in Rainy Dog and it's by a cigarette lighter, much like a character in 1992's Hard Boiled. Asian films seem to prefer a concealed metal object over a book.

I feel like I've run across more instances of this plot device lately but I can't remember them. Maybe it's a sign I should carry something heavy in my breast pocket? Maybe it's just a sign I should remind everyone to read.

Twitter Sonnet #1177

A dream assembled markets for the street.
A ticking watch was dropped in bourbon straight.
Reflections made the face a very beet.
The early worm arose so very late.
A cagey coat contained the heart and ribs.
The apple fell across from heated snow.
Galoshes stayed where steps were calling dibs.
In crystal ice is more than atoms know.
Regarded glasses turn the eye again.
A name resembled clumps of tangled hairs.
The elbows knew the knees were real akin.
For joints as links were chained to bears.
In pockets kept beside the heart's a song.
The lighter's smaller book was very strong.

A Riot of Almost Nothing

It's hard to imagine anything like normal life carrying on in the kaleidoscope of rubbish, signs, people, and homes of Taipei's slums as they're shown in 1997's Rainy Dog (極道黒社会>. And it's not the story of a normal life director Takashi Miike gives us, showing without sentiment a very unsentimental man and the loose semblance of a family that forms around him. It's a cold, fascinating film.

Yuuji (Show Aikawa) is a Japanese gangster working in Taiwan after his group back in Japan, following a change of leadership, put a hit out on him. There's another yakuza in Taipei (Tomorowo Taguchi) tasked with killing Yuuji. He can't go home until he does though after one failed attempt on Yuuji's life he explains to his target over dinner that he actually likes Taipei. It has friendly women and good food. He asks if the little boy following Yuuji around is really his son to which Yuuji replies he has no idea.

It's really not clear; Yuuji remembers sleeping with the boy's mother years ago but it's entirely possible the woman just used it as an excuse to drop the kid off with Yuuji when she didn't want to care for him anymore. Not that this phases Yuuji whose profession involves executing people without hesitation or remorse. He doesn't tell the kid to leave but doesn't acknowledge him either. It's like he's not even there.

Meanwhile, the boss of Yuuji's gang speaks to Yuuji in the exaggeratively familial way of yakuza, calling Yuuji his brother and telling him how much that means. But of course Yuuji has a very good idea of exactly how much it means. The beginning of the film has him coolly riding along in a truck with hanging meat, and it's not hard to see the correlation.

Yuuji hires a prostitute named Lily (Xianmei Chen) and circumstances force him to flee with her and the kid. They seem like they're starting to form something like a bond and Lily even starts trying to teach the little boy how to read. But it's all so tenuous; they wind up on a beach where a motley of scattered junk has washed up, all this human detritus divorced of meaning and function. It's one of many visuals that with cool sadness show what life is like in Yuuji's world.