Foreign films: I love them
Listen to this article(The Secret in their Eyes stars Nicole Kidman and Julia Roberts. Publicity)
I am on a foreign films kick.
The Argentine film The Secret in their Eyes won the Oscar for Foreign Film in 2010. It is about a retired attorney who decides to write a book about one of his cases that still had some open questions. Writing the book serves another purpose as well. It gives him an excuse to have continued contact with his ex-boss who he has been in love with for more than twenty years. Although on the surface it is a murder mystery, it is really a film about love. Love unrequited, love ripped away, love turned to hate.
Now I see that Hollywood is filming the English version of the film with Nicole Kidman and Julia Roberts. My first question is, why? Why does Hollywood always re-make perfectly good movies?
From what I have read, they have re-written the script and changed the dynamic by changing the characters. It isn’t a man’s wife who is brutally raped and murdered, it is a woman’s child. It is a different story. Why call it the same thing?
One of my pet peeves.
I recently watched a Brazilian film, Central Station, from 1998. A 9-year- old boy asks a woman at the train station to help him when who loses his mother in a car accident. The woman, Dora, helps him on his journey to a remote area of Brazil to find his father. The countryside is beautiful.
Viggo Mortenson is starring in a newly released Argentine film, Jauja. He plays a Dane who moves to Argentina in the 1800’s with his daughter and when she runs away he goes searching for her in Pategonia. This dialog is mostly in Danish. Viggo grew up in Argentina and speaks Spanish and French as well as Danish and English. I am looking forward to seeing Jauja.
Kathleen Gamble was born and raised overseas and has traveled extensively. She has a BA in Spanish and has worked in publishing, printing, desktop publishing, translating, and purchasing. She also designs and creates her own needlepoint. She started journaling at a young age and her memoir, Expat Alien, came out of those early journals. Over the years she has edited and produced an American Women’s Organization cookbook in Moscow, Russia, and several newsletters. Her first book, Expat Alien, was published in 2012 and she recently published a cookbook, 52 Food Fridays, both available on Amazon.com. You can also follow her blog at ExpatAlien.com.