Out of This World
A Film Treatment: Beginning
Ho Lin

This is not a treatment in the strict, customary sense. Rather, it is the sketchy outlines of a blueprint, the initial crunch of tires on asphalt as the car lurches forward with countless destinations in mind. With only the vaguest notion of an end and beginning, this is a collection of fragments, emotional beats, suggested events and characters, the minimum parameters to sidestep the paralysis of complete freedom. With luck, this will someday be a film; with even greater luck, it will become several films.

Two locales: a city in the US, and a city somewhere else in the world. For now, say San Francisco and Hong Kong. Two cities mired in the present, nestled to ocean. Two cosmopolitan centers where appearance means much. Two insulated, insular entities that have not yet lost their power to attract and sway. Most of all, two places where every once in a while one can still find oneself on a hilltop, gazing through mist to watery lights below, irrevocably alone.

Five characters: Two men, three women. One man and one woman live in San Francisco, one man and one woman live in Hong Kong. The third woman is the thread that connects them all. Most crucially, the same actor and actress will play each pair. In other words:

1.	San Francisco man (For now, call him Paul) = Hong Kong man (call him Gun Duk) = same actor
2.	San Francisco woman (Halley) = Hong Kong woman (Cheng) = same actress
3.	The third woman (Miho) = present at both locations

Why the duplication of actors? Across several universes, parallel lives are lived. Many Pauls (or Gun Duks) may very well populate other cities in this world, or in other worlds (hence the film’s title). They are similar in some aspects, different in others, and yet still reducible to a common core, even if the core is nothing more than a twitch, a prejudice, a longing.

Paul: Late twenties, disciplined yet noncommittal, genial but dispassionate. Daily life occupied with a task demanding punctuality, responsibility, professionalism. Teacher perhaps, or therapist. A job, something to do well, nothing more. He is not one who secretly nurses a hidden talent—no wallflower waiting to bloom here, thank you. He is at peace with his lack of originality. Perhaps because of it, he is confident. Meeting women, making them feel at ease, sleeping with them, later disassociating himself from them as gently as one lays a sleepy child to rest at night. The elegant clink of the wine glass, to the resting of phone receiver on cradle. Perhaps he plays a musical instrument, for his ears alone, even if female visitors demand a performance—sorry, forgot how to play long ago—and later, in solitude, he finds happiness in his fingers roaming on the frets of his guitar, or tickling the keys of his saxophone.

Movement: The film’s progress should bring transposition and juxtaposition. Hope gives way to resolution; complacency erodes to bewilderment. San Francisco is transformed from summer fog and bleached sunlight to winter’s chill winds and rain that thuds on and on. Hong Kong struggles through the pregnant thunderclouds of August to arrive at the serene, spent skies of January. Beer coated with the neon of evening may dribble down Gun Duk’s mouth as his friends chant away, daring him to finish the whole bottle; at the same instant, Paul vomits into the toilet bowl, seized with the morning hangover.

Gun Duk: Gambler to excess, his passion and crucible. Mah jong, horse races at the Happy Valley track, even hobnobbing at the Jockey Club when opportunity allows. Besides that, he has no convictions, very happily so. Easy to say he never grew up, but there is more than that—he did grow up, and found it wanting. So he easily flows between child and adult, caring about work inasmuch it allows him to play. His apartment was exact and new only five years ago, purchased at the height of the housing boom—now it is worth 60 percent less, and as if in response, the interior has grown dingy, damp, cluttered. His life here has been distilled to the nightly glow of his computer screen as he pores over stock prices, chats with his buddies and contacts on the phone, always looking for an in, an up, an out.

Cars: Bringers of changed fortunes and death. Perhaps Paul and Halley meet because she nearly runs him over one day (she is an absent-minded driver). Cars are a sore point with Paul; they easily outrage his sense of fair play. Something as simple as attempting to find street parking, a police car skulking behind you, and the impatient cop, lacking anything better to do, snaps on his loudspeaker: Why don’t you move it! Or when cars run red lights, a breath from mowing you down, so oblivious to your existence that your near-demise is known only to yourself, all this just so they can rush to stop at the red light at the next corner. Gun Duk will eventually lose his life to a light bus, one of those mini-vans that shimmy as they scream around the turns in downtown Wanchai. He will be fleeing his creditors, the familiar tale of high interest and physical punishment, just a case of getting mixed up with the wrong boss. More specifically, the wrong boss’s would-be girlfriend Miho. What emotions seize his face when he is caught in the glare of the onrushing headlights? Shock? Bemusement? Exhaustion? Maybe even acceptance?

Halley: Early twenties, relentless, boundless, and above all, honest. She has the drive to be a filmmaker, but no training or experience. Open-minded but inflexible, where Paul is close-minded but flexible. It has not been decided how they met—perhaps she nearly ran him over one day (for she is an absent-minded driver), and he was in an unnaturally forgiving mood. Or perhaps, seized with an idea for a film about psychotic therapists, she posed as a patient to pick his brain (“It seems to me that you have, um, contradictory symptoms …”). No boyfriend, no time for them—they are too demanding, anyway. People talk about a woman’s neediness and dependency, but it is always the man whining about the woman not being home on a Saturday evening. She simply cannot accommodate that sort of willy-nilly schedule; she may be struck with the desire to shoot the moon rising over Telegraph Hill, or spend the evening repainting her apartment for the third time this month. But at least with Paul, there are no expectations or obligations. She often calls him at three in the morning—yes, she has heard all the evidence that suggests that three o’clock is the soul’s low ebb, but that is when she is calm enough to formulate questions. She only sleeps three hours a night anyway, like Thomas Edison, her hero. She calls him, he makes a show of grumbling, but he never hangs up. Mostly he just listens. A good listener is harder to find than good sex.

Further on cars: Paul has fantasies. A car will nearly run him down, the driver will drop his window for a crude remark in the midst of a one-handed cell-phone conversation, and he will reach out, grab the man by the lapels, and bodily haul him from the vehicle. The car will continue puttering down the street, rudderless, and finally come to a crunching stop against a wall, or a dumpster. In the meantime, he will have beaten the man’s face to a satisfying pulp, after which he will find the car keys, drop them through the nearest sewer grating, and disappear like the breeze. All he wants is egalitarianism: Everyone should be treated decently, all the time. Or maybe he is simply an egalitarian snob: You just want yourself to be treated well, is all. Halley, too, is fascinated with the lawlessness of red-light running, and she spends her days filming such incidents. All makes, models, neighborhoods, social classes, ethnicities. Some run the lights with impunity, others get an aggrieved yell or the honk of an opposing horn. She has no idea what she will do with this footage, but she suspects it will have anthropological value someday. For now, she enjoys showing Paul these rough scenes and watching his face burn crimson.

Cheng: She heard all the stories about Hong Kong when she was a child growing up in China. She couldn’t quite believe them until she was fresh off the train to Kowloon, riding a bus as it clung to the corners like a race car, sheer centrifugal force pinning her body and face to the window, the summer wind scalding her. She looked upon the dozens of faces in the street looking back at her incuriously, and she knew: no place like this. She had come to make a living, perhaps make it big, in what she had no idea, but in a place with millions of people, millions of ideas, surely there would be a few which she could synchronize with, like the hundred-strong crowds that march in lockstep across intersections. That was two years ago.

Habits: Gun Duk is addicted to Coca-Cola. Empty cans pile up in artless clumps in his apartment, even as Cheng constantly badgers him: All that sugar and caffeine can’t be good for you! She is right, he knows it; he also knows that this is her function as his girlfriend, to point out these things. But Miho is different. She is old enough to know that vice is what it is, and should be accepted with a shrug. So they spend a long evening sitting atop the railings overlooking Hong Kong Harbor, and the cans pile up at their feet, she in her short white dress and perfectly cut jacket, he in his crushed velvet shirt and Diesel jeans, the older woman and the younger man, neither of them demanding more than company.

Miho: Hard to believe that a girl from a modest snowbound village in Hokkaido could become a jetsetter. But here she is, an elegant woman who flits between Hong Kong and San Francisco: a new cosmetic line here, a fashion expo there. Flash bulbs pinpoint her in the crowd, young women take note of the purse she uses. She is in high demand: the middle-aged Hong Kong men with hair perfectly sprayed and parted on the side are always there. They are probably gangsters, with their mirrored sunglasses and their young cocky go-fers bustling about to ensure convenience and comfort. And still, through it all, she remains unflappable, amused. Her politeness is a shield that even the hardest Big Boss is reluctant to test. But still, these Hong Kongers are so excitable, so lively. She is content to drift along with it, attracting all the free banquets and rumors.

The first meeting: To Halley, fashion means nothing more than throwing on a white button-down shirt when the occasion calls for it, but a friend of a friend is in need: can she help film a fashion show at the local gallery? So she drags out her pocket DV camera, not the high-quality 3-CCD model she owns, because to her this is merely a quick and compact formality. But maybe something subconscious is at work—her best-filmed moments occur on the pocket camera. And sure enough, as she glumly films the models, collagen pouts and Botox foreheads amid spotlights that dance like an epileptic attack, she sees Miho in the crowd. The older woman is completely still and attentive, the tip of a pen poised at her lips. She’s the designer, she is told, and as if by magic, Miho turns to face her, from across the room, and nods a hello, as if they are old friends, or sharing an innocent secret. Wow, she thinks.
 
Halley: Lives in a studio apartment, but “shoebox” is more apt. She has not held down a job for years. She is not rebellious or political or incapable. Jobs just slip away from her, like soap through fingers. Her dresser is stuffed with speeding tickets, and unbeknownst to her, a warrant is out for her arrest (she has escaped through blind luck: typo in her official address, Spruce Street for Pine Street). She is dimly aware that she has fines to pay, but they are mere cloudbursts, something to be momentarily frowned at and forgotten in the next moment’s thrall. She is more worried about her significance, her duty to life and art. Is it possible she lives in a diminished age? She has heard older people speak of the good old days, the time of world wars, when life and people were meaningful. She despises even the suspicion that their talk is more than generational condescension. 

The first meeting: The air at the Hong Kong Jockey Club is smeared with perfume and cigarettes. A favor has been called in with a racetrack connection, and Gun Duk is mixing at an evening banquet, all agog at the jewelry, the tuxedos, the blinding dinner plates. An older woman—Japanese, he suspects, by the way she seems to be perpetually bowing even when she is completely still—is fending off the advances of a local boss. Bullethead, the locals call him. Dum-dum bullet is more like it, he muses, with that ever-widening body. Now Bullethead has one hand on her shoulder, and his long rubbery lips are homing in on her face. She is playing the embarrassment card, turning her head away, straining to break contact, and yet Bullethead edges closer for the unwanted kiss. So with the ease that comes from navigating claustrophobic dance clubs every night, he slides between them. How are you! he beams at the older woman. How long’s it been? And with that he sweeps her away, and is startled to find that she moves in perfect time with him, not even a missed step or gasp of surprise. Do not worry, he says in Japanese. It’s okay. She answers, in creditable Cantonese: Thank you. They both laugh at the exchange, and then trade names. Gun Duk. Miho.

Gun Duk: Outside that miserable apartment, he is in love, with everything. The double-decker trams that drag him dinosaurlike through Causeway Bay to Wanchai, where he lives. The clubs where the English and Americans hang out to snort their cocaine (he has no interest in all that, but finds those gueilo fascinating nonetheless). The wispy arms and even wispier hair of the girls who populate the dance clubs. The smell of hot, greasy food at three in the morning as he and his buddies stumble home from another night of betting and carousing and singing.

Cheng: Perhaps she will be a writer. There is something writerly about this summer thunderstorm, and she wishes to capture it on paper: the fearsome beat of the raindrops against the windows, the uncollected laundry twisting in distress on the lines outside, the way the light seems to inhabit the tousled bedcovers. She and Gun Duk have been together for a year, and now he tsks-tsks at her: Don’t you clean your feet anymore? Look at this dead skin! She is laid out on the tiled floor, the sweat on her exposed arms and legs slick as oil, and he rubs her feet, watching intently as the snowy specks of epidermis drift to the floor. To her, he seems both protective and distant. What do you do when a man who cares for you, a man you love, is getting bored? First you must pinpoint what bores him, and how do you do that? Much simpler if he could only say: Sorry, I’m not interested anymore. But no, he remains, even as she searches in vain for a job, and he patiently points out the best local noodle shops, or the latest in Hong Kong slang, or how to get from here to there. And he still buys her those perfect-fitting jeans (such a compliment that he studies my body that carefully), those zip-up leather boots. Maybe he is waiting for her to declare boredom first, like the opening gambit of a chess match. But, she sighs to herself, it seems so impossible, with such a cramped yet cozy ceiling above them while the rain runs riot outside.

Similarities: One can read Gun Duk as the path in life Paul never took, or vice-versa. Both needing to be awakened, both unsuspecting and walking towards crisis. Cheng and Halley, on the other hand, regard the world with clear-eyed curiosity. They are ready for adventure, and even to depart this world if necessary—or more accurately, to cross from one world to the next. Neither doppelganger will meet the other, but they will become dimly aware of the other’s existence.

The moment: Halley has made herself up for this occasion, but plainly she is no expert—this Miho sees when they meet at the Italian café for dinner. With that eye shadow and ruby lipstick, she might as well have been a circus clown. But Miho discreetly ushers her to the bathroom for a quick makeover.  First Halley wipes off all the makeup as best she can, and now she looks like a doll left in the rain, but it doesn’t matter because Miho is saying in that charming Japanese accent, I saw your short film. I think … very good. Halley gasps: Really? Yes, Miho answers, ever precise as she applies some subtle mascara—the Japanese know how to hide their imperfections with the minimum amount of application, she had explained earlier. You should come to Hong Kong, she continues. I know some people. You can make a film there. Halley hems and haws and Miho mistakes it for reluctance: Oh, I am sorry. Maybe you have boyfriend here? No, no, of course not, Halley assures her, No way, men are like kids. Miho nods once, emphatically, like a schoolgirl satisfied with the adulation she is receiving. Yes, I agree. No husband for me, too. No more needs to be said; they both know that they could recount the same stories, and arrive at the same conclusions. So instead they both laugh. And then Miho frames Halley’s new face in both hands and presents it to the bathroom mirror. Halley holds back her astonishment—it is as if they are the same woman, only fifteen years apart. And a few minutes later the thought overtakes her, as the waiter refills her coffee and she drinks distractedly, scalding the roof of her mouth. I must be in love.

Paul: He believes there are two kinds of men—men that others talk about, and men who others talk to about other men. He claims residence in the latter camp, but unbeknownst to him he also qualifies for the former. His ignorance of that contributes to his charm. He is decent, helpful, but untested. An entire evening spent listening to horrendous stories about friends who have been unemployed for years, or lovers with leukemia, or relatives arrested for arson—he refuses himself any deeper contact with misfortune, angst, trauma.

Suspicion: As a child, Miho was sick once, for weeks. Drifting in and out of fever, she remained in bed, but her dreams were like life. Cities with heaven-high skyscrapers and avenues that stretched for miles, seaside towns lit by tavern light at dark, farms in the country where she could hide herself in the growing wheat and whisper with the crickets all night. She could see herself in all these places, or at least versions of herself: maybe shorter hair and simpler clothes here, maybe braces on her teeth there, maybe even a scar or two from unremembered accidents. And then she finally became well, and these flashes of almost-memory subsided. But every so often, during a trip, or upon meeting a person, she thinks, I know this from somewhere. Or: You remind me of someone. One evening she and Gun Duk ride the ferry to Cheng Chau, all the better to avoid attention, and eat at a cheap restaurant by the harbor. As they eat, she notices a young woman standing in the distance, lone under the streetlamp, watching them. Dammit, Gun Duk hisses. It’s my girlfriend. Sorry, I’ll be right back. And so the lone figure under the streetlamp becomes two, and Miho presses her face to the restaurant window, straining to look. Is that young girl … no, it couldn’t be, impossible. Before she can even breathe Halley, Gun Duk pulls her aside, out of view, into darkness, not to return.

Gun Duk: His weakness is envy. He sees all that others have, the slick designer suits and the latest BMWs (Mercedes are too staid for him). Just when all seems right, something better dodges within his eyesight, just out of reach. He treats lovers (lately, just one lover) with consideration, generosity, even tenderness, but he refuses to give away all of himself. If he should change his mind, he reasons, if he should find someone better, why add to the hurt of the breakup with memories of total commitment?

How does it all begin? Perhaps we see doors swing open onto a field of glistening green, only to watch the ground torn to bits the next moment as the horses storm out at the opening gun, the latest race at the Happy Valley track. Tight close-up on Cheng and Gun Duk among the spectators. She looks at him intently, choosing words with care: I’ve heard about a tortoise statue that defies gravity. Every year, it climbs a little higher on that hill in Shatin, a few centimeters at a time, and people say that when it reaches the top, the world will end. She waits for an answer. His slender musicianlike fingers white about his betting slips, he yells Yeah! just before the horses thunder around the bend and drown him out, her out, everything else out.

Or: The plastic blind sticks as it is raised, then gives way with a harsh squeak. Through the jet window, a new dawn breaks over the clouds. The sun works its way very slowly across Miho’s face. With the sleepy puzzlement of a newborn, she looks around her—yes, that’s right, she is on a jet, she is somewhere between East and West. Must be morning—it has that aqua color to it. Funny how she always falls asleep at night, and awakens in the morning. It is almost as if she has exchanged this universe for another; a land of perpetual black for this thrilling new territory of daybreak. She holds her hand up to her face and sees the veins glow red in the morning light. What would happen if she stayed on this jet and it flew on forever, floating between one dimension and the next, life and existence unspooling in countless directions beneath her?

Or: We see a television monitor that engulfs the entire frame. It is completely black, but it gradually fades in on Halley (or is it Cheng?). She is gazing at the floor, in subservience one would say, or perhaps contemplation if one is optimistic. She raises her eyes to look at the camera, at us. Deep dark rings rim her eyes, and they are red from exhaustion, or crying, or epiphany. And then we see an upturn to the corners of her mouth, and the smile works her way up to her eyes, until they have premature crow’s feet. It is a smile of resignation, and yet it seems to reassure us: It’ll be alright after all. And then the camera turns away from the monitor to focus on the man for whom this video is intended, ghost light scattered on his face. He, too, is tired, and the stubble on his chin is as gray as an old man’s in the unforgiving glow. But instead of a smile, we see the shine of tears in his eyes. It is only later that we realize that this is Paul, and he is watching Halley’s goodbye, her testament.

The last of Halley: She wanders the streets of Hong Kong, alone, her hair tousled, her clothes slept-in for days, a backpack drooping from one shoulder, her pocket DV camera from the other. One could easily mistake her for a homeless person. She looks up, past the soaring spires of downtown Central, to the breaking of sun just over the manmade horizon. She has lost everything. She cannot go back to the States; she cannot go to Miho. Freedom has brought nothingness. But she is here, she can feel her tired joints even as she stretches her arms and lets the light happen onto her face. There is another place to go, different people to meet. Or perhaps they are all the same, because she believes that in life, you meet the same people over and over—they may be more or less developed, but they are more or less similar. And in another place she will meet another Miho, and this Miho will say, yes. Staggered with the hope, she clutches the camera against her heart, her eyes squeezed shut with the intensity of the thought. And then she is gone.

In bed: Cheng and Gun Duk, both naked, face each other, but Gun Duk is asleep. She says his name, but he refuses to stir. She arranges his hair so that it falls in a boyish sweep over his eyebrow, and reflects on the shame of aging. Not for him, not ever, please. She whispers, asking him if there is someone else, knowing full well he cannot hear. He doesn’t answer, but the breath of her words on his face awakens him. What? he mutters, but her lips are on his now, and she holds him tight, crushing him to her, wanting to shut off all response and dissent and failure, as he kisses the jut of her shoulder blades.

Cut to: The carnal screams of a woman, extreme close-up on her mouth as her voice echoes in the cavernous space, the video pixilated and all but unreadable. Yes, that’s it … deep, deep. Moments later Halley is leading Paul out of the Market Street Theatre. He is zombielike, more than a bit embarrassed. She is thoughtful. Do you really think it’s possible to make that kind of sound? she asks. The thwap, thwap, thwap? She pats herself all over, trying to reproduce it, but he silences her with a wince. And yet, he enjoys playing this role of squeamish skeptic. The fact is, yes, that sound is possible, and he’s heard it many times, firsthand, but damned if she is going to squeeze that information out of him.

Cheng: Sometimes she wonders if she loves Gun Duk merely because he was the first man in this city to love her. No, he has a good heart, she still believes that. Even when he is annoyed by her, even when he comes home late at night rank with nicotine and incense, she never thinks he has cheated on her, not for an instant. When she is upset, when she has a rotten day working another temp job as a clerk or secretary, when she feels the skeptical eyes on her because she is just some clueless nitwit from the countryside, when the words MAINLAND CHINESE may as well be branded on her forehead, he can detect her mood without even a word on her part. And then his arm wraps around her waist and he holds her, both of them still and silent. Maybe it is her own fault that she is losing him, she thinks. What can she offer besides a good lay now and then, and endless trouble, the pressure of providing for two people? It would be easier if she was just someone else, someone who would remember everything that happened up to now, but gifted with different circumstances, different abilities, myriad ways to show appreciation.

Disappearances: Absence and presence are constantly at war. Miho is in San Francisco, and then in Hong Kong—wherever she is not, she is missed. Cheng awaits Gun Duk in that decrepit apartment, and finally, one night, she waits and he does not come, for he is dead. Likewise, one night at three o’clock, Paul does not receive a call from Halley. She has left the country. He traces her to Hong Kong, and it is discovered that she saw Miho there briefly. What transpired there, no one can say, at least not immediately, but shortly afterwards, she vanished completely. All that remains is a videotape. The central mystery of the film is now in play. Paul must go to Hong Kong, even if it means shirking responsibilities. He must know what happened. Cheng must know about Miho, even after Gun Duk’s death. Will the two of them meet through Miho? What will they say when they see the mirror image of their missing loved ones?

Miho: She finds San Francisco to be a fearsome place, with all these smiling people, all their loud talk, all the adroit avoidance of commitment. Appointments are hinted at, vague promises made, and nothing happens. As she takes lengthy walks down the deserted avenues, it seems to her that this place is the beginning of a city rather than the real thing. Turn a corner, and the thriving traffic and bodies, the lively rot and decay, are nowhere to be seen. But Halley is the kind of city person she is accustomed to. She is unadorned, honest. I’ll meet you at seven, or That’s a beautiful dress, or I promise I’ll do it: I won’t forget. She means all of it. How could such a woman live in this town? Those who cannot commit always prey on those who can. Miho feels she has to protect this young woman, somehow preserve that integrity. She thinks: That poor Halley, maybe she has a small crush on me. Gun Duk, too. Aimless and cocky and yet always ready for a drink, for conversation, for friendship on demand. She wishes she could love them in return, but love disappeared from her long ago. Maybe it left with the sickness of her youth. Maybe that is it—she recognizes in them her own childhood, when she, also, was too decorous or romantic to make a full confession of love.

The dancer: She is a folk dancer who is also trained in the modern idiom. In bare feet, but with the blossomlike satin robes and braided hair of Chinese princesses past, she twirls as the sound system throbs with a melody that could belong to either East or West. One can easily accept it as a Verdi opera, what with that lush symphonic arrangement, but it also has the plaintive austerity of an evening spent alone in a pagoda, on an autumn lake. Likewise, her downward look suggests repose, reticence, elegance, but then a sudden twist of the arms or a forthright step betray brash modern confidence. Paul watches her spin and soar across the mammoth museum auditorium, and wonders: Have I seen her before? Maybe in a past life. In Hong Kong, the same dancer performs the same routine in the Exhibition Centre, a spotlight staying on her with unerring precision. Cheng observes from a distance. She, too, has a premonition: This dancer knows something I don’t. Something vitally important.

The karaoke house: It is late, and Halley is drunk. Miho has left the US once again, uncertain of a date of return. I didn’t even have a chance to hang with her, she sighs. Do you even know if she … , begins Paul, but she refuses to let him finish the reasonable question. My love is away, and I’m upset about it, she slurs. Now I will sing. Paul winces, a genuine wince this time, because to him karaoke is a betrayal, a surrender to conformity. They are huddled together in a private booth, a disco ball faltering above them. As a postcard-plastic moon hangs on the television screen, she launches into the old Flamingos standby: The moon is bright … and so am I … many millions of people pass by … She is slumping against him now, fighting her drunkenness, entirely focused on finishing this tune as if something good will come out of it, and even as he crosses his arms and thinks, I can’t believe I’m here, he watches her. She does have a good singing voice, even when drunk. In fact … But they all disappear from view … ’cause I only have eyes for you … She pours out her soul, oblivious to the man she is leaning against, and as he stares at her, transfixed, breath trapped in his throat, mouth gaping, gripped with a newborn urge to put his arm around her shoulders, he thinks to himself: Oh shit. This is love.