My Near-Death Experience

I almost lost my life today. Or became paralyzed. And in the most stupid way imaginable.

Angeline wanted to see a Japanese movie, ヴァイブレータ (Vibrator). Apparently she'd seen a film by director Ryuichi Hiroki at a film festival and loved it, and so wanted to check out his other work. Trouble was, it was showing at a notorious (but not the most notorious) sleazy cinema frequented by Dirty Old Men, which was why she dragged me along as "protection". No harm, I thought, if it's in a D.O.M. cinema, it's gotta at least have lots of sex in it. Hell, with a title like that, how could it not have tons of fucking, right?

So it was that I got up early on a Saturday morning and hauled my ass over to that haunt (not by choice though) of my childhood - I took violin lessons in that same building. And I got pissed off right away because I realized that they'd raised ticket prices by a whole dollar - no doubt profiteering from the whole GST increase exercise.

Here's where I segue into a sort-of review/film summary - figured I might as well write it since I'm doing this. A whiny, needy freelance writer of random articles meets a ruggedly handsome truck driver one night in a convenience store and takes off with him. They have (badly shot) sex, she has twee voiceovers and intertitles that try to pass off for character depth, she also reveals that she pukes as a psychological reflex and/or is anorexic/bulimic (oh my, what a three-dimensional character!), they go off on a road trip together, they lie a little about their lives, they have more (boring) sex, nothing really happens, she cries a lot because it's time for the third act and some kind of resolution, he is a really nice guy for no reason (let's face it, most people would've kicked psychobitch out after the first two miles), he drops her off back at the convenience store, and she's magically changed. Hooray. Really, besides the natural performances, there's precious little going for this movie.

I was glad that I had my soybean drink and Yan-Yan (biscuit sticks with dip) to distract me for part of it, and conversation with Angeline helped to take my mind off the rest (the best thing about a D.O.M. cinema is that you can talk during the show and no one cares). I could've gone insane otherwise.

So anyway, back to the main point of this post. We got up to leave, and for some reason I turned around so I was facing the back of the cinema. Now, Golden Cinema is strange in one aspect, which is probably a holdback from its days as a live theatre venue - the rows are fucking steep. Basically, the back of the seat in front of you comes up to about 6 inches below the knee. There's just a tiny space between each row, probably just over a foot. It's also a fucking long way down to the bottom, with steep steps all the way, so it's really not for those with acrophobia.

So I'd turned back and was making some snide comment about the movie when the back of my shin hit the back of the seat below me. As you well know from movies, when this happens at crucial moments, whoever it happens to inevitably falls over. And so it was that I began to teeter and lose my balance.

For that split second, I freaked out. Visions of me tumbling down all the way to my death flashed before me. Since the distance between each row was such that if I'd fallen, the back of my neck would probably have hit the back of the seat in the next row down, I also got particularly nasty images (complete with bone-crunching sound in full surround) of me snapping my neck. For comedic purposes, I'd like to say that I also saw myself putting ads in the papers for someone with a paraplegic fetish to take care of me during my final days, but unfortunately my mind doesn't quite work that fast.

Also extrapolating, can you imagine the headlines in the tabloids? Promising Youth Cut Short By Sleazy Movie. Aspiring Filmmaker Dies In Painful Irony. Actually, I don't think any of them would be this clever.

I did, however, regain my balance, to my immense relief. Angeline, not having realized the epic nature of the human drama that had just played out in front of her, looked at me in puzzlement when I heaved a huge sigh.

I'd like to say that I had some kind of grand epiphany about how I was going to turn my life around. You know, do charity work, quit smoking, run for President, that kind of thing. But really, that kind of thing only happens in (bad) movies.