Los Lunes al Sol (Spoiler Alert)

The AP Spanish Language exam is difficult to study for, primarily because it's hard to pick up a language in a weekend.  The elements of the exam are designed to be a surprise, so it's not like you can pick up a list of vocab and study that.  Because of this, I have taken to watching movies in Spanish for lack of a better way of preparing.  One of those films was Fernando León de Aranoa's Los Lunes al Sol (Mondays in the Sun).  A cheerful movie it isn't, but it is a fascinating look at the lives of four men left unemployed by the closure of the shipyard in Vigo, Galicia.  Santa, José, Lino, Amador, Sergei and Reina all meet at a bar owned by their former colleague Rico after their ship building jobs are outsourced to Korea to discuss their various lives.  It is an ensemble piece, but Santa is the closest thing to a main character; he is the most superficially confident and the unofficial leader of the group.  His story is that he has a court case hanging over him regarding a lamp he broke in the protests over the closure of the ship yard.  The fine is 8,000 pesetas (yes, this movie was made before Spain went to the Euro) but to him, morally, it is worth much more.  He refuses to pay the fine on the grounds that the shipping company is charging him for being fired.  Ultimately, he does pay the fine; but proceeds to break the replacement lamp to make a statement about having been fired.  Lino is the only one of the group to consistently pursue work after being laid off, but he consistently pursues work for which he is not qualified and for which the other applicants are half his age.  He keeps hoping that he will be called back for one of the positions but he never is.  He alludes to one position that he could have had if his daughter had not been keeping the line busy, but - given his luck - that seems increasingly implausible.  Amador has degenerated into alcoholism after being abandoned by his wife; maintaining an increasingly transparent pretense that his wife will soon return from holiday.  He is fixated on turning the lights out and cryptically moralizes to his compatriots at the bar.  It is he that brings up the image of Siamese Twins: once one falls, both fall.  Ultimately, Amador falls under undisclosed circumstances from his apartment window (although it is very probable that he committed suicide).  Santa discovers him above the entry to his apartment bloc, whereupon the light over the entry goes out.  Sergei, the Russian, is the most delusional of the bunch; he claims his career as an astronaut was ended by cutbacks in the Soviet Space program.  José is to me the most interesting.  His wife is the one who brings home the paycheck and he grows increasingly moody as he feels more and more emasculated by his economic situation.  At one point the couple goes to ask for a personal loan, but it is his wife Ana that is the "active person" on the form, not José.  In a fit of anger, he snatches the form away from the banker and throws it away.  Ana too is stressed by the relationship.  She works long shifts at a tuna packing plant despite her legs which seem to be in constant pain and her boss makes advances.  It is suggested that she planed to run off with him, but stays when José comes home from Amador's funeral and she decides to stay more out of pity than love.  The friends get together to hijack a ferry boat to sprinkle Amador's ashes into the harbor, but characteristically the ashes go awry and Santa, José, and Lino are left stuck on the boat in the middle of the harbor.  


This movie moves at the languid pace of the siesta in which these men seem to be trapped.  They have fallen, and this movie takes a look at what that does to middle aged men who realistically have no prospects.  In one way or another, they all turn to dreams.  Amador embraces alcoholism and deluded philosophizing.  Lino keeps filling out applications for jobs for which he is wholly under-qualified.  Santa turns to women and dreaming of Australia (read escape). This movie came out in 2002, but it's so worth the watch.  Get thyself, reader, to Netflix to watch it!

Happiness is Overrated

I should probably preface this with the fact that I speak, at max, six sentences worth of Russian. I can read a little more, but by read I really mean that I know what words written in the cyrillic alphabet should sound like but have no idea what they mean.  All that said, I love Russian lit.  Because of that, I thought it might be a good idea to head in to Brooklyn for the Maly Drama Theater's production of Chekov's Three Sisters.  For those of you who clicked on the link to the company's website, you may have noticed that it is not in English.  I saw a rather quintessential production of the Three Sisters if only because I actually saw it in Russian.  There were English supertitles, but the actors were undeniably speaking Russian.


What was particularly interesting to me about the experience was the time difference of the audience's laughter.  The play is questionably worth seeing because it's incredibly depressing (even for Chekov) and a little pedantic (more on that later), but an interesting part of the experience was that the performance was supertitled.  Some projectionist had the thankless job of projecting the translation of the Russian words on screens on either side of the stage in time with the dialogue so that the non-Russian speakers in the audience could understand the action.  Now of course this is not a perfect solution; some of the lines were up a little too long, some were not up for long enough, some of the translations were a little questionable, and - most importantly - the audience reactions were not in sync.  The Russian speakers in the audience would, without fail, laugh/react first.  Which is interesting to say the least.  To me this begs an interesting linguistic question: can translation work?  Are "I love you" and "te quiero" analogous or does the one loose something in the translation into the other?  As I said before, I do not speak Russian, but I do get by in Spanish (at least I should given how long I've taken it) and I think the power of language is fascinating.  I strive to be able to read things in the original spanish because I don't want to loose meaning in the translation.  Of course I'd love to be able to read Chekov in the original Russian or Dumas in the original French, but I only have so much time in my day and I can't learn every language known to man.  So we must often be satisfied with the translation, imperfect though it may be.


Additionally, I was intrigued by Chekov's focus in this play on happiness.  Here's where the play gets a little pedantic.  The characters, trapped in a provincial, Russian garrison town, turn regularly to philosophy to pass the time.  More specifically, they talk of happiness and whether it is attainable.  Vershinin (I think, the fact that it wasn't in English made me loose track of the characters a little) repeats the mantra that happiness will only be possible in the future once they have built (literally.  Many of the characters are strong proponents of laboring to bring happiness to oneself.) the foundation for their descendants.  The repetitiveness of the discussions renders the play a bit pedantic, but it's still an interesting thought.  The argument (and it is a very specific one) centers on the idea that labor in this life will either bring you happiness or your descendants.  I'm not sure I agree with their methods for bringing happiness, but the general question is certainly an interesting one: is happiness possible to attain?


So, that's a lot to think about.  Comment away...