Double Bill at the Cheeseblab Uniplex

Guest, blogger, and guest blogger for the weekend Gabriel Schechter:

Repo Man

(1984)

Spellbound

(2002)

My wife Linda and I are guests at Cheeseblab Central this weekend, and last night were treated to a double bill at the complex's lone film theater. Repo Man, which we had never seen (sue me!), was billed in advance, and when we requested something "lighter" as the second feature, we were treated to Spellbound (the National Spelling Bee version, not the Hitchcock). It didn't take long for me to realize that both films tell the same story--a single-minded group relentlessly pursues a harrowing target. Simply substitute words for bullets and polysyllables for profanity.

The most successful repo men, we are told, are willing to break into a car at any time of day or night. One of the spelling bee contestants whose quest we follow consults a list of words during brief breaks in action while playing softball. The pressure never ends, whether it's Harry Dean Stanton and Emilio Estevez tracking down that elusive Chevy Malibu or the children of immigrants immersing themselves in orthography. "You can know every word in a round except the one they give you," laments a defeated finalist in Spellbound. In Repo Man you can break into every deadbeat's car except for the one who shoots you, or bite the bullet in a "convenience" store.

In a way, the characters in Spellbound are more tormented than the repo men and their antagonists. They are real people, after all. When Tracey Walter's character rides the flaming car off into the night sky, it is not real. That car is the fictional embodiment of Hell, and woe betide the man who looks in the trunk. But one of our eight precious spellers is done in by "hellebore," and we feel that sudden departure more keenly.

"A repo man spends his life getting into tense situations" Stanton tells Estevez, but for true tension you have to watch the National Spelling Bee sometime. Sitting on that stage, the contestants wait for the next foreign-sounding word that might spell their doom, size up their opponents, and gaze out at the parents in the audience--the people who have sacrificed so much for them, in some cases allowing them to pursue their obsession, in other cases pushing them, pushing, always pushing. No wonder more than one of the eight expressed great relief at losing; "at least I won't have to study this any more," they sigh, smiling wryly as they contemplate regaining their childhood.