Monday, June 6, 2016

My First Movie in a Foreign Country

Learning a new language has a steep learning curve. Just when you think you’ve got it, you’re thrown into a situation where you realize you don’t know anything. I took three years of Spanish in high school, and I studied on my own with my Spanish teacher once I decided to study in Spain.

Then I got to Spain. I had no idea what anyone was saying. But I slowly began to adapt until I could at least get by.

That’s about the time that my friends decided they wanted to go to the movies. I figured I’d be okay. I’d been able to communicate at least a little bit with my friends, and I could figure out they wanted to go watch a movie, so it wouldn’t be that hard, right?

My advice to anyone watching a movie in a different language is: Make sure the plot is easy to understand. Something like a Disney movie would be perfect.

We went to see Stardust. For those of you unfamiliar with the plot of Stardust, there’s actually three different plots, or maybe more, I’m not sure. About twenty minutes into the movie, I realized I had no idea what was happening. There were king-type men killing one another for no real apparent reason, and old women turning young, killing animals, and then there was a boy with a candle that did… well, I wasn’t sure. By the time we got to the sky-pirates, I didn’t even bother to try and figure out what was going on.

Movies may depend a lot on setting and plot, but without dialogue, most don’t make that much sense. At least ones with multiple plot lines and characters.


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