“I’m Russian: I’m into men, diamonds, and caviar.” Irina Valeryevna Shaykhlislamova
? ????
а ты говоришь по русски? (A ty govorish’ po russki?)
On American TV good movies offerings are rare… They are like mirages. They shimmer on the horizon but they vanish the minute you try to grab them.
To watch fairly decent flicks you have to stay clear of the networks and fish in foreign waters. You have to turn to Netflix, HBO, Hulu, Amazon and the likes.
After a hard day of loafing, I often relax from the stress by gazing at the BoobTube. Well, it is not a tube anymore… but after spending a sizable amount of money on a large flat screen, I want to get my money’s worth.
The last 3 months I survived a pathetic dearth of Yankee entertainment with a steady diet of Hispanic, Indian, Korean, Danish, Swedish and German offerings.
After exhausting my supply of watchable stuff, I turned to my wife for recommendations.
моя жена (my wife) who watches almost exclusively Russian flicks pointed me to YouTube where there are plenty of foreign and Russian movies.
I am somewhat acquainted with the Russian language and I am familiar with a bunch of words; I also understand some snippets of conversation.
Additionally, when watching a Russian movie I sometimes come accross French “loanwords” such as bagage, bigoudis, bouquiniste, café, cauchemar, chance, chanson, concours, costume, couchette, dame, douche, garage, jalousie, mirage, plage, restaurant, trottoir, voyage, etc.
Let’s not forget that before the Bolshevik Revolution, due mainly to Peter the Great (r. 1682–1725) and Catherine II (r. 1762–1796) the nobility spoke almost exclusively in French.
I found Russian movies very interesting. If it would not be for the omnipresent snow and if people didn’t speak Russian, you could easily believe that the action was taking place is some affluent European country.
The living quarters are nice, people are well dressed and everybody seems to drive late model cars.
This is course a fantasy land, like the 1930’s Hollywood productions.
Many Russian movies feature beautiful women who dress exquisitely (shades of Doctor Zhivago) and act very well.
In many Russian comedies (and dramas) women are unmarried or divorced. They are all brazenly looking for marriageable material and they make no bones about it. But not everybody qualifies. The prospective groom has to be rich, filthy rich. Russia seems to be a very materialistic society where money reigns supreme.
Plots are often convoluted, if not very schmaltzy. But I am not against occasional schmaltz. If you must know, I am a softie and I like happy endings.
In Russian melodramas though, there are very few happy endings. Somebody must die before the movie ends. It sometimes reminds me of exasperating French flicks that do not have an explicit ending.
I tried to learn Russian many times but the devilish Cyrillic alphabet always prevented me from getting ahead. With subtitled Russian movies, I have the feeling of gaining ground. Maybe someday I will be able to finally understand моя жена.
до свиданья мужики. Goodbye peasants!
Alain