Reticulator

Irony of fate, the sequel

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May 112008
 

Tonight we watched the rest of Irony of Fate, the Sequel. It was better than we had expected — not bad for a sequel. It was fun to see all the actors again, 30 years older than in the original. Andrei Myagkov and Yuri Yaklovev have aged nicely. Barbara Brylska looks great, but surely has had some top-notch help from plastic surgeons to look that good in her mid 60s. It would have been nice to see Liya Akhedzhakova, too. She is the only character, other than the two mothers, who I found missing in the sequel.

The original from 1975, besides being a goofy comedy and a love story, was a satire on the uniformity of the Brezhnev era. This one is in part a satire on the cell phone culture.

If there is any doubt that this is a post-Soviet movie, the militsia (police) are portrayed as sleepy, good-natured drunks (it’s New Year’s Eve, after all) who are easily deceived and bribed. I wonder how long Putin will allow that before movies have to go back to portraying them as in the Soviet days.

The younger generation of actors did fine work, I thought. Sergei Bezrukov as Irakliy was great. I’d like to see what other kinds of characters he can play. I was rooting for a reformed Irakliy who learns to get his priorities straight would to get the girl in the end (and kiss her without interruptions from that cell phone attached to his head) but it was not to be. Konstantin Khabensky, who plays Zhenya’s son, does fine as a drunken Russian, but drunken Russians are a dime a dozen in movies. Liza Boyarskaya as Nadya, Jr. doesn’t have a lot to do besides look pretty — compared to what Barbara Brylska did in the original — but she showed some signs of being a capable actress anyway.

Center for Belarusian Studies

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Apr 222008
 

The WSJ’s “Best of the Web Today,” one of my favorite daily reads, poked fun at Belarus by putting this headline in its “Bottom Stories of the Day.”

  • “Centre Dedicated to Study of Eastern European Nation Belarus Opens in Winfield”–headline, Canadian Press, April 20

I usually like to join in whatever fun James Taranto is having, but it so happens that I have gotten interested in learning more about Belarus, especially after watching Kalinovski Square. So I clicked on the Canadian Press article to learn about this new center.

And here is a URL for the Center for Belarusian Studies. There is not much information there yet, but I hope there will soon be more. A few things I’ve been wondering about.

  • Just how is Moscow exerting control over Belarus and Alexander Lukashenko? What is the relationship really like?
  • How did people become so attached to the Belarusian language, which seems to be fairly new as languages go, at least in written form.
  • What means did Russia use to discourage use of the language?
  • What has happened to the people in the videos during the past few months?

The Hound of the Baskervilles

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Apr 192008
 

Last night we started watching The Hound of the Baskervilles on YouTube. This is a Russian movie from 1981. Vasily Livanov is said to do the best Sherlock Holmes on film, ever. I have not watched much Sherlock Holmes on film, maybe none at all before this, so can’t vouch for that. But he portrays a lively intelligence rather a stodgy intelligence. Very good so far.

Vitaliy Solomin plays Watson. I’ve already seen him in Siberiade. And Nikita Mikhalkov, as always, plays Nikita Mikhalkov. He’s supposed to be playing Sir Henry Baskerville. I don’t know the Baskervilles story at all, so can’t say if it’s an appropriate match or not.

We should not protest like that

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Apr 162008
 

I watched the 2nd YouTube segment of “A lesson of Belarusia” tonight. The way the students were distributing election campaign leaflets reminded me of “Sophie Scholl: Die Letzten Tage.”

But I also had to go back and look at one part of the first segment that had stuck in my mind. “Frankek’s” father is talking to his underground students, pointing out that, “If you write that things are no good in Belorusia, they will put you in prison.” One girl says that as a journalist she would start up a paper called “The Way to the Future.” The first four issues would be pro-state, then she would start changing its character. “In Belarus,” she says, “unjust laws should be evaded.” Their teacher laughes and teases her, saying, “That’s cunning,” but then gets more serious: “You are saying terrible things. Belorusians are taught to hold laws in contempt. We should not protest like that.”

That is an amazing position to take under those circumstances. It suggests that what wants to break out here is not an ordinary, garden-variety revolution that knows only how to tear down. It’s easy for the oppressed to lash out at oppressors and want to be free. But under such conditions, to want to build a national character that has respect for laws, is admirable.

A Lesson of Belarusian

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Apr 152008
 

Michael commented on one of the Kalinovski Square posts, asking if I had seen the 6-part documentary, “A lesson of Belarusian,” that had been posted on YouTube by the same person. I hadn’t, but I just now watched the first part, even though I should really be working on other things.

Already it has helped fill in some gaps in my knowledge about Belorusia, such as the fact that there was a time of greater freedom before Lukashenko came to power. I’ll be watching the rest of it, even though I can’t kill two birds with one stone and learn some Russian while watching it. This documentary seems to be in the Belarusian language. I recognize some words that seem to be very similar in the two languages, and there are probably more that I miss because my Russian vocabulary is quite limited. But a lot of the Belarusian seems very different. (I had the same experience when listening to some Ukranian recently. It was more different from Russian than I had expected.) But it still is worth watching.
And I’d have to use the subtitles whether it was in Russian or Belarusian.

Dark Eyes

 Music  3 Responses »
Apr 132008
 

When I used to teach a pre-confirmation class at our church, it seemed that young people (and old) wouldn’t easily buy Martin Luther’s words of explanation to the First Commandment: “We should fear, love, and trust in God above all things.” Young people wouldn’t say much, but older ones would.

People think fear is a sign of an unhealthy relationship. There are any number of cliches that put fear in the same category with ignorance, superstition, and intolerance. (It was a discussion of Barak Obama’s bigotted remarks about bitter people and their religion and guns that got me thinking about it.) Somehow people don’t think it’s right that we should fear God.

It so happens I was just looking looking at the words of the famous Russian love song, “Dark Eyes,” trying to memorize it for language-learning purposes. I noticed that it talks about fear in a way that indicates a relationship that is perhaps complicated, but not a bad one.

Here’s a transliteration of the first verse, sort of from Wikipedia:

Ochi chyornye ochi strastnye
Ochi zhguchiye i prekrasniye
Kak lyublyu ya vas kak boyus ya vas
Znat’ uvidyel vas ya v nedobryii chas

And here is an English translation, from the same source:

Dark eyes, passionate eyes
Burning and splendid eyes
How I love you, how I fear you
For sure, I espied you in an ill-starred moment

You can hear the song on a whole bunch of utube clips, most of which don’t do it well. Perhaps it’s because it’s too familiar to most listeners. The best sung one I’ve found so far is a music video that’s slightly raunchy and violent. Maybe the video is of scenes from a movie. I’m not sure, but I think the singing is good. When the Red Army Chorus and most other groups do it, it’s too ponderous. Maybe famous singers who are too full of themselves shouldn’t be allowed to sing it.

I don’t think I’d play the one linked to above at church, though, if I want to make the point that fear can be part of a healthy relationship. I’ll keep looking.

And in case anyone is wondering, I don’t think the word for afraid (boyus) means anything very different from what we usually mean in English. As far as I know, it can have the same complicated meanings in Russian as in English. It’s the very same word I hear in wartime movies where someone might hear the the sound of distant guns and say, “I’m afraid.”

Lingq

 Audio, Web  No Responses »
Apr 112008
 

I’ve been wondering for some time what I was going to do when I finished the Pimsleur Russian course. I like using the Pimsleur language courses because they’re something I can do on my bicycle commute to work, or when I drive, or sometimes when I’m working out in the garage.

But Pimsleur can take one only so far. It doesn’t do much in the way of vocabulary building, and doesn’t do much to help one with the written language. I worked my way through the last of the 90 lessons a couple of months ago. I can review them some more, but even when I know them perfectly, it won’t be nearly enough.

I’ve done more than just follow the Pimsleur course — I’ve learned enough of the Cyrillic that I can more or less pronounce words I see, even if I don’t understand them. I’ve studied some of the grammar in Russian for Dummies and the Lonely Planet guide. And I watch a bit of Russian movies almost every day — sometimes with subtitles and sometimes without. I’ve learned a few things that way, but at the rate I’m going it’s not enough.

I thought of getting a Russian New Testament on audio from the Faith Comes by Hearing people. I have their limited-vocabulary French version on audio, a lightly dramatized one that seems to come from West Africa, and I thought it was very well done. I can more or less follow the Gospels when I listen to them while riding. (The Epistles and other parts without dialog are not so easy to follow, so maybe I don’t know as much of that language as I think I do.) But I don’t think there is a Russian equivalent. I could swear that at one time the Faith Comes by Hearing people had a more modern translation in addition to the Holy Synod one, but I don’t see any sign of it now. I’m afraid the Holy Synod version might be a bit much for me at this point, though it might be worth a try just the same.

But a few days ago I finally found what I need: Lingq. I signed up for the free version for now, but during some months when I have enough time, I’ll sign up for the for-pay version, maybe even for the one that gets me some real-time help from a tutor.

Lingq is orieinted towards learning words. Learning words is not the same as learning grammar and meaning, of course. But I think it will be just fine for me, having just learned some of the grammar and structure from Pimsleur. I do NOT think it would be a good way to start learning a language, and there may be a point when it’s no longer the best way for me to continue, but it seems just right for this point in my learning. I get to select dialogs to read and listen to. I mark the words I don’t understand, and they go into a flash-card system by which I can learn them. I’ll put some of the dialogs on my MP3 player so I can listen to them over and over while I’m riding.

We’ll see, anyway, if this helps me make some real progress.

Kalinovski Square

 Documentaries  4 Responses »
Apr 102008
 

I’ve been showing my parents some of the things one can find on YouTube and Internet television. Mostly it’s been Bach music clips of various kinds that I had been bookmarking in preparation for their visit– child keyboard prodigies, ancient organs, choral groups, etc. But Dad was also interested in foreign movies. He has macular degeneration such that he can’t read words on the screen unless they are very large, but he can recognize faces and seems to be able to make out a lot of other details. There are a few Russian movies on YouTube, but not much in the way of really good stuff. I have to read the subtitles to him, so it’s somewhat of a cacophony — people speaking Russian while I’m reading English subtitles as well as I can in a much less expressive voice. And then if I get a coughing fit that’s leftover from my recent bout with bronchitis and pneumonia, Myra steps in and reads for me.

I told Dad that one can’t watch the news on RTR Planeta for long without seeing Vladimir Putin, and indeed we did get to see him on the evening’s news. It seemed to be in a story connected to the Russian opposition to the U.S. and NATO. Then we watched some teevee from Hong Kong, and then I stumbled on a German television station that featured naked women dancing. Myra ordered me to close it quickly, though she found it somewhat amusing. After that I was more careful about not just picking stations randomly, but I was gunshy and didn’t find much.

Finally I remembered the documentary, Kalinovski Square. That was a success. It sustained everyone’s interest. We watched the first four parts tonight and will continue tomorrow. Myra and I had watched it together once, and I had watched all of it at least once more for the language-learning. Mom came and got interested, too. It has to be difficult trying to get the full meaning out of my reading of the subtitles, when even the subtitles are probably an inadequate translation of the original Russian. It’s a shame Dad can’t read them, because it’s very humorously done — in a dry, ironic fashion — even though it’s about a very serious subject. Just the same, everyone was fascinated (and appalled at Alexander Lukashenka).

One thing that’s disappointing is to see that some of those segments haven’t been viewed by more than 500 people — and I’m probably at least three of the 500 myself. The documentary is banned in Belarus. One can learn from it not only about Belarus but general principles about how democracy is suppressed.

Valentin Gaft

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Mar 212008
 

I knew I had seen that guy who plays the NKVD chief before. He appeared tonight while I was watching Part 4 of Master i Margarita. The NKVD is finally involved — trying to figure out this Professor Woland character (who is Satan) — Who is he, really, and how did he get to Moscow? The NKVD guy gives orders to arrest anyone on the slightest suspicion.

Finally I remembered. It’s the same person who played Lavrentiy Beria in “Balthazar’s Feasts, or Night with Stalin.” Well, I guess he has found a role. His name is Valentin Gaft.

I have mentioned before how movies from the Soviet era always portray the police as virtuous and almost omniscient. It’s difficult to have much of a plot when one party already knows everything and can do no wrong. How do you make a movie under those conditions? Answer: You do slapstick where an innocent person has to get involved with the crooks as an informer in order to obtain the final unknown detail — as in Brilliantovaya Ruka (Diamond Arm) or Gentlemen of Fortune. There can be some entertainment value in that — I understand that those two movies were very popular in Russia.

Master i Margarita is of course a post-Soviet movie. And in this one, the almost-omniscient characters are Satan and their sidekick, who know how to use their knowledge to destroy people.

Omniscience in the wrong hands is not a good thing.

Oleg Basilashvili

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Mar 202008
 

I’ve been watching Master i Margarita on Youtube. It’s a long series, and it will take me a while to get through it. It’s set in 1930s Moscow and 30AD Jerusalem. While watching Professor Woland, the Satan character, it took me a while to realize I had seen this actor before. He is Oleg Basilashvili, who played one of the lead roles in one of my favorite Russian movies, Vokzal dlya Dvoikh (Railway Station for Two).

He’s twenty years or so older in Master i Margarita, so that’s one reason I didn’t recognize him. But another is that he has a much greater range of acting ability than I had realized from watching that first movie.

I’m still reading Gulag, too. Anne Applebaum gives a lot of examples of how prison camp could completely transform a person, often in ways that weren’t very nice. Vokzal dlya Dvoikh had a way of showing it, too. At the beginning of the movie, Basilashvili’s character is a fussy eater, not willing to eat the mediocre food put out for customers at the railway station restaurant. That’s what gets him into trouble and then romance. Well, more trouble. He was already in trouble because of a car accident, and was going to have to spend three years in prison for it. He was a concert pianist, and now is going to be a prison flunky. After a couple years in prison, he has a completely different approach to food. His instinctive reaction on seeing any that’s unattended is to make sure nobody is watching and then furtively slip some into his pockets. He doesn’t have the emaciated look that a real prisoner in that state would have — I suppose it would be asking a lot of an actor to do that — but one can’t miss the point.

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