My favorite laid-off state worker speaks the Russky yizook fluent enough to have been mistaken for a Muscovite one time, and as one of those people who likes to learn languages, I took a semester of Russian in college and have studied from books on and off.
We tend to pick up Russian movies at the library, and the library foreign movies are generally classics or un-subtitled. This means we have watched a lot of slow moving black and white Russian movies.
This weekend, though, we watched Ballad of a Soldier, from the 50s, about a soldier in WWII, and it was very watchable. The plot kept moving, the characters were interesting, and the scenes of the Russian front, train trips, towns, and villages made it well worth the 80 some minutes.
It reminded me of the yiddish movie Yidl Mitn Fidl, in which traveling musicians go all over the countryside and the movie has become a documentation of the period. Soldier was made twentyish years after the time of its setting but provides views of the countryside that are probably not that changed. Plus the actors speak really clearly in simple dialogue, so I could understand much of it.
The Criterion Collection tends to make very good choices. I am always impressed.
Next up, The Secret of the Grain, about a French Arab man who opens a restaurant specializing in his ex-wife's recipes, according to the DVD cover. I've heard a lot of good things about it and it won four Cesar awards, etc. Bon appetit.
Ballad of a Soldier at Criterion
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