Sam and Sally met at a dance club called Tapas.
They shared bubble teas outside the club at an
all-night café, sucking up tapioca pearls and
chewing on her round malleable ideas on the
importance of salsa and, by the way, had he ever
seen the Japanese subtitle, Shall We Dance?
He said no. But it sounded interesting, he added.
“It’s one of my favourites.”
He asked her why that was.
As dawn was breaking, she led him to her tiny
apartment where she played for him her copy of
Shall We Dance? served with ginger
tea and milk.
“So this is what you need to know about this
movie: it’s about a person from a particular time
and place who wants to try on somebody else’s time
and place – ballroom dancing!”
“Then partway through the show of their crazy lives
or not-crazy-enough lives ballroom dancing becomes
part of him and he becomes part of the dance. What
you need to know is that fancy footwork and a
polished frame are just rough tools,” she went on,
“for evolution, anyway.”
There was a moment of silence. Then, he said he
liked it.
“Well,” she said. “It’s a working theory. I mean,
I’ve been dancing salsa for years.”
She was getting sleepy. They had already been up
all night dancing and talking.
She wanted to know, though, if he had seen an
equally good Japanese subtitle called,
Tampopo.
He said no. It sounded interesting, he added.
She said it was one of her favourites.
When he asked, why, she began brewing some Turkish
coffee.
Sam talked during films. “What’s with the white
suit?” and “What are they doing with that egg?”
“They’re spoofing American films, aren’t they? Oh,
I know they are.” He didn’t always address
these questions towards her but when he did he
insisted on an answer.
When that movie was over, there was a moment of
silence. The DVD had gone to a blue screen.
“What you need to know about this movie is how the
fragmented narrative style cuts and prepares
something as messy as human passion, and the
result? Slurpy Japanese noodles!”
He was irritated by the insertion of one isolated
scene of a mother cooking a last meal for her family
before passing away. It wasn’t necessary, he
protested. All the other scenes were funny and
hyperbolic.
She leaned in closer, “Don’t you think our daily
lives are best prepared like Japanese noodles?”
Sam could not engage her since he was still brooding
over the unhappy scene.
The sun was bright through her apartment windows.
The modest one bedroom apartment was on a floor high
enough to see the sky lit, by sunrise and sunset,
yet low enough to enjoy the shelter from a court of
trees. She observed this, then herself – she was
still wearing her salsa dress.
“I’m sleepy,” she commented.
He smiled at her and asked what else did she have?
Well, what he needed to know was that she was a
wealth of story. She offered a few titles that she
believed were complimentary to the Japanese
subtitles. Each one he had never seen. She
commented gravely that there was much that he hadn’t
seen. This was true, he agreed lightly.
She steeped blueberry tea for them, served with
chocolate covered butter cookies.
They watched Spirited Away.
“Is he a ghost for ghosts?” “What’s that thing
he’s eating?” “Why’s her head so big?”
After the film, she informed him, “I wrote a
dissertation on the boundlessness in animation and
children’s stories. In this world, if you can
imagine it, you can do it. But often, you need the
courage of children to let yourself.”
She stopped to observe him again, wondering if he
was ready to tell her something about himself.
“Well, it’s just a theory; but I guess virtually
true – at least,” she laughed at her joke.
Then, because the film Kill Bill Volume I
had a Japanese animation sequence in it,
they began to watch that as well. And then,
Kill Bill Volume II, offering him the
bottle of red wine that was her Christmas present
from an acquaintance.
“Most violent movies don’t offer a lot of real story
or character but eventually it happens. It almost
can’t help itself. Do you understand? You can’t
avoid it forever, even when you really want to.”
Sam said they were entertaining, at least.
Sally responded, “You ever meet people that always
want to say or do the right thing and as a result,
you never know who they really are? It’s kind of
like that. Maybe it’s our moral obligation to beat
them up in one way or another until they let
themselves show up.”
They were interrupted by their roast chicken
take-out orders. A cache of wet toilettes were
produced so they could enjoy the meal with their
hands. She insisted they eat with their hands –
even the macaroni salad. He told her it was against
his religion but eventually conceded to try it her
way.
They discussed Robert Rodrigues score of the film
and then Rodrigues’ own directing credits. Sam did
not know that Desperado was the
2nd film in a trilogy.
It was important for him to know, then, that the
original character in the trilogy did not look like
Antonio Banderas. The original actor was an
ordinary-looking young man that you might pass on
the street and never notice.
“That was his charm, Sam,” Sally said. “The whole
charm of the film.”
Can we see it? Sam asked.
When she returned to the couch, after laying down a
tray of chocolate cake and milk, she observed him.
The introduction of the movie was already singing.
Stubble had suddenly sprouted all over him in the
last hour but his eyebrows were more immaculate than
her own.
“Sleepy,” she said at her guest. It wasn’t the
movie marathon, of which she was accustomed; it was
constantly remembering his presence; the warm body
occupying the space that her giant bear usually took
or catching his curious gaze when she was occupied
in getting them a blanket and pillow. It was like
an elbow in the ribs every time one might try to
sneak a wee nap in a boring board meeting. He
smiled patiently.
Resigned that there were simply too many movies that
had to be reconstructed, by her and for him, she
pulled his arm around her and rested her head
against his chest.
He asked her, how would she watch the film that
way? She said she was fine the way she was.
They watched El Mariachi.
They watched Once Upon a Time in Mexico.
They watched the Unforgiven.
They watched The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.
While they watched Tim Burton’s Charlie and
the Chocolate Factory, she observed
silently that they needed to rest. She needed to
rest. She needed her toothbrush and make-up
remover. Yet, when the film was over she couldn’t
forgo discussing how this particular story had
actually been reinvented and renewed by its remake.
“I’m passed thirty you know; I’ve had several,” she
added.
While watching the Barbarian Invasions,
she discreetly pretended to go to the washroom, and
actually crawled into bed. The movie made him cry.
She didn’t wake when he looked for her. Her bedroom
was a mess. There were clothes, books and jewellery
everywhere, not to mention the rows of eyes staring
at him from her collection of stuffed animals. She
didn’t wake. He snuggled up beside her, dosed for a
bit but was restless in the foreign bed. She used
too many blankets. He couldn’t tell where any of
the corners were. Finally, he woke her so they
could discuss the film. She sat up in bed and
plugged in the white Christmas lights wrapped over
her headboard. They went on a less sad topic and
gossiped about the son’s relationship with the two
young ladies in the film.
Sam told her that he was divorced and for a long
time didn’t know how to get back into dating. He
still didn’t.
Her attempts to shoo him out of her small kitchen
failed. The cramped, plywood and chipped tile space
was her chief eyesore in the apartment. She fed him
fresh pancakes and hash browns and she drank the pot
of coffee alone as he preferred tea with lemon. He
declined dessert after breakfast.
They began the morning with the Looney
Tunes Golden Collection, and she
couldn’t believe he didn’t get the reference to
Humphrey Bogart in 8 Ball Bunny.
They watched:
She advised him that Hemingway’s cancer was not like
Bogart’s hard-boiled vulnerability. She then bit
his ear and he kissed her.
She said both were well-written, maybe saying more
in the fiction than in their actual lives. There
was no beating these two for more than they gave.
“You might be on to something,” he said.
Well, it was just a working theory.
They watched the Hours, which
he didn’t like, though she was sure he would.
He was surprised that she had never seen
Amelie. She said it was because
somebody had compared her to the main character who
she later learned was crazy.
“She’s not crazy,” Sam said. “She’s passionate.
Sam stayed with Sally for three months until they
had finished watching every film and video in her
apartment. He was full and tired, and returned
home. She was depleted and rested and thought she
might have the beginning of a new working theory.
