Plans, codes and rules held up against the accident that outranks them — and characters forced to decide which of the two they actually trust.
Every film here builds an apparatus of control and then breaks it, but the interesting variable is what the break reveals.
The Dark Knight treats it as an experiment with a control group: the ferries, the hospital and the interrogation are the same question asked three times, and the Joker is only ever interested in the answer. Pulp Fiction treats it as comedy, because a bathroom door defeats three separate professionals. Parasite treats it as weather, and weather does not negotiate.
Watch which characters keep faith with their code afterwards. Jules does. Ki-taek concludes that the plan that never fails is the one you never made.
The Dark Knight2008 · Christopher NolanThe Joker's only stated aim is to prove Gotham's order is a costume, and the ferries, the hospital and the interrogation are one experiment staged three times.
Pulp Fiction1994 · Quentin TarantinoEveryone here works to a code — Jules's scripture, the Wolf's timetable, Butch's inherited watch — and the joke is that a bathroom door outranks all of them.
