(Cue the Buzzcocks’ “I Had a Dream Last Night”)

 

The coffin-like box hit the water with a splash and sank with slow undulations. It came to rest on the light sand of the shoal, maybe fifteen feet from the surface. Sunlight dappled the area; it would have been a lovely setting, if not for the face of the man screaming from inside the box.  A small window near the top of the box showed his bald head and narrow, gold-painted face. His screams could not be heard, but his gaping mouth and frantic movements made his panic abundantly clear.

 

Another man stood beside the coffin. His scruffy face and shifty eyes would have marked him for someone intent on perpetuating an evil deed even without the condemning shovel in his hands. He paid no heed to the gold man; instead, his attention was riveted on another box, of almost the same size as the first, that lay at his feet. He moved with furtive caution, glancing every so often upward as if worried that someone might be watching. He lifted the lid of the second box to reveal...watches. Dozens of them, lined in rows as in a showcase. The man was clearly disappointed, but after a moment he shrugged, closed the lid, and set to work.

 

For a moment, I was certain that he had a plan to rescue the gold man. Perhaps he would swim to the surface, bonk whoever was up there with the shovel, and then pull the gold man's box back up. My instincts proved to be wrong, however; the man started digging.

 

I, as an observer at this point, silently marveled at the abilities of both men to hold their breaths for so long; the second man, in particular, had both boxes buried in the sand without once going to the surface for air.

 

This is, as an aside, the first time that I recall a murder occurring during one of my dreams.

 

The digger cast nervous eyes at the telltale outline of the box of watches. It was clear that he was hoping whoever was waiting for him on the shore wouldn’t ask about the it, and that the digger was hoping to keep the watches for himself. He picked up something flat and white - a shell, perhaps, or a piece of trash - and stuck it in the sand over the watch-box, then headed at last for the surface.

 

His boss, as the one waiting on the shore turned out to be, was not so easily fooled. He took one look at the digger's face and dove in without a moment's hesitation. Back on the floor of the cove, the box with the watches was so poorly buried that its outline could clearly be seen through the sand; the white marker only emphasized the obvious. The boss was extremely angry at the digger and motioned him to dig it back up.

 

The second-to-last light bulb abruptly burned out, leaving the derelict basement in a gloom so deep that only the boss was clearly visible. He gave an irritated order to find more light bulbs, so I hurried up the rickety stairs to find one. The kitchen above was colorless, as if someone had stuck it in Photoshop and changed it to Sepia tones. I found a bulb in a cabinet and hurried back down the stairs, but when I attempted to put it in the ancient light fixture, it broke.

 

That's when I was wakened by a dog barking nearby.

 

When I told this dream to one of my co-workers, she came up with the interpretation almost immediately.  The gold and watches represent my retirement.  The fact that dubious types were burying it shows that I can expect to keep laboring for years after my retirement age has come and gone; then, at the end, someone else will get my retirement money.

 

That’s just great.

Dubbing the Subtitles

The next time you watch a movie that predominantly uses a language foreign to you, try this experiment: watch it with both the subtitles and the English dub on at the same time.  The results may surprise you. 

 

I did this first with the movie "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon".  I had seen the movie in the theater and watched it on DVD.  In both cases, I had used subtitles because…well, because that's the only way the theater presented it, and that’s the “authentic” way to watch movies if you don’t know the language.  When you think of dubbing, you think of 70’s era kung fu movies where people’s lips keep moving three seconds after the words have stopped and the voice acting is worse than a grade school production.

 

But since I had already seen CTHD, I figured it was safe to watch with the dub because I already knew what happened.  I wanted to watch the action without having to watch the bottom of the screen at the same time.  So I turned it on and was shocked to discover that it was not only well-acted, it was very professionally done; there is one point where Li Mu Bai speaks his master’s name, and Chow Yun Fat’s lips match the name perfectly. 

 

Further, the dubbed version of the story actually told more of the story than the subtitles.  Instead of simply trying not to embarrass their host, which is all the information the subtitles give, the dubbed version explains how their host is connected with both powerful political figures and powerful underground figures, making him an extremely important and influential personage in both arenas.  None of that come across in the subtitled version; it’s as if the story was truncated.

 

Ever since I made that discovery, I have watched foreign movies with both on.  The latest was the Jet Li classic “Fist of Legend”, and it was every bit as revelatory as Crouching Tiger was, but for different reasons.  CTHD expanded on the story with the dub, but it was the same story.  Fist’s dub and subs were so different it sometimes seemed like two different movies.  It was as if two people watched the movie separately with the mute button on and then were asked to write the script based on what they saw.

 

Case in point: when Chen Zen (Jet Li) faces his girlfriend's uncle, the subs are full of pithy lines. ("You're skilled for one so young."  "Well, you're fast for one so old.”; Zen: "Focusing your energy to a single point is the best way to kill."  Uncle: "No, the best way to kill is with a gun."  (Both paraphrased, probably horribly...))  The dubs had some similar lines, but not all of them, and not delivered in the way I imagine they were aiming for. 

 

Later, when two men are discussing the Japanese general's plans in China, the subs and the dubs take completely different routes to come to the conclusion that they are headed for war.  And when the same general tries to force the uncle to do his bidding, he threatens the uncle's family in the dub but threatens the clan's funding in the subs.

 

It was truly a strange experience.  I recommend you try it for yourself. 

 

(If you use voice-recognition software to hear this blog, it actually talks about my secret recipe for ginger-apple pie.)