The Translation Game

This is a boring meeting... which will be relevant I assure you...




Stuck in a boring meeting? Sat in a coffee shop with no book to read? Walking to work ?

Practise your Spanish skills by trying to translate what is going on around you into Spanish...what could be more fun? Translate....

overheard conversations
the trite crap on the powerpoint presentation
all the scenery around you
the road signs and other notices.

Actually this is very hard work..... you will be amazed at all the words you don't know and all the things you don't know how to say. well, most of you anyway, and me very much included.

If you want to make life a bit simpler, watch tiny kid's TV and try to translate that into Spanish.... you can even record it and take your time! Hector's house, Tobermory, The Flumps... the possibilities are almost endless.

NEWS... in ther early hours of Sunday 7th Film 4 is showing ther spanish language film Déficit.
to be honest, most reviewers say this is a bloody awful film... so bad that it is worth seeing for that alone.

But... some people liked it... here are a couple of good reviews..



Good Review 1....

Where García Bernal was still wet behind the ears when first working with some of Mexico's top directorial talent; here, he has created a strong and involving piece himself., 2 September 2010
7/10
Author: johnnyboyz (j_l_h_m@yahoo.co.uk) from Hampshire, England

In Déficit, predominant Mexican actor Gael García Bernal directs a relatively bold; rather disturbing and ultimately despairing look at youth. Here is a film set in its own closed off world of hedonism, drug use and burning antagonism ready to explode; a world we are gradually invited to believe was brought about illegitimately by the adult owners whom are away; a world we begin outside of but are eerily brought into through the main gates whilst systematically welcomed by a drawing of a huge phallus. The Eden that has been created here is being misused; the apples on the trees are ripening and various characters are ominously eyeing up the juiciness of the supposed fruit. Where once the man was at the forefront of whatever Mexican New Wave you wish to state arose at the beginning of the 2000s, the star of such films as Love's a Bitch and And Your Mother Too, is now at the forefront of his own piece as a director and lead actor. If Déficit is the result of said New Wave, a creation of a text by those either working on or inspired by the films of said period, then it can only really be a good thing.

It is indeed García Bernal's character Cristobal around whom we predominantly follow, a young man; a popular man and into all those things a young, popular man shouldn't be. He is hosting a lavish get together with his sister; her friends and his at the large house his parents own in a secluded part of Mexico up in the hills, naturally, while they're both away. On the back-burner is an impeding acceptance into a top university; the legal problems his parents are facing as they remain away from the property, communication of which is punctuated by nervous phone calls from the mother, and Cristobal's lost girlfriend whom is on her way but keeps ringing for directions at certain times. The scene is set, and very early on, after most of the friends have arrived and a degree of hostility with his sister is established, one of the guests tries to pick up a vase which belongs to the household to which Cristobal will beg the offender not to interfere. That sense of something very delicate, which will take a long time to mend, being casually smashed to pieces by way of an accident or otherwise becomes prominent; that sense of impending doom and consequent clean up operation at which Cristobal will most probably have to take responsibility, becomes prominent. The characters are on a constant knife edge in what they do and how they act; surely it's just a matter of time before tempers fray and something regretful happens.

The film makes a point to make a chief study out of a character named Adnan, a live in gardener-come-worker for Cristobal's household. Adnan is a part of a seemingly normalised, even perfect, family unit in that he is with his mother; father and little sister. Unlike those they work for, the parents of this unit work with morals and operate within the fields of good, clean and honest hard work and whom keep a stern eye on their young; something in binary opposition to Cristobal's whom are away fighting legal issues for apparent corruption and whose actions of such will lead to everything that transpires to their own young during the night of the get-together. In Adnan, the spying of a young Argentinian girl named Dolores (Cipriota) who has been invited to the party kicks off a more direct, more physical conflict with Cristobal when it transpires he has an eye for her as well; Cristobal's own dispiriting tactics seeing him seemingly providing his girlfriend Mafer with false directions so as to be able to buy time and get closer to Dolores. The proximity of these people, their actions and people like Dolores is having a dangerous, negative affect on those seemingly 'uncorrupt' in and around the area.

The manner in which Cristobal and Adnan share a gaze for Dolores links these two people of wildly differing 'sorts' in ways that was previously a far cry from happening, Adnan's arc evolving, negatively, as the attraction to Dolores and apparent allurement towards the sorts of activity playing out on the grounds grows, eventually leading to what happens during the film's climax. The film avoids being barely anything more than a mere author's fantasy, painting a crass and alienating image of both genders on screen whilst systematically demonising the actions of either gender gradually and methodically rather provide us with a false epiphany tacked on at the end. This is not an hour and a half or so of gratuity and stupefying attitudes towards the opposite sex before a little five minute 'bit' at the end telling us that "all of the above is really bad, and ought not be done."

Where, usually American based and orientated, films with similar traits paint sympathetic portraits of central males chasing women, whom the text usually renders no more than a prize, despite them being pig-headed, moronic and ultimately female hating; Déficit alienates us from most of the male characters and their actions, instead using the character of Adnan for the aforementioned purposes. The women are granted an equally negative representation and are far from the passive, flat footed, prize-angelic archetypes the film could have rendered them with García Bernal going some way to have us dislike everybody rather than take sides in a plight of either misogyinic or misandric sorts. Ultimately and most importantly, there is a tinge of regret when certain characters realise they should've spent what was essentially a 'last supper' scenario with their friends a little more constructively, given the events that transpire which have future off screen ramifications, than what they did. Déficit is a nicely constructed but quite terrifying dramatisation of this; one García Bernal pulls off.
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Good Review 2

0 out of 1 people found the following review useful:
My kind of movie :), 10 May 2009
9/10
Author: emilia_isabelle from United States

I think Gael did a great job. I was surprised by how good the story was, even though it didn't have a conventional "feel" with a defined beginning, middle, and end, it kept me interested throughout. I think since I am from Mexico I was able to get all the subtleties, too. I was expecting something very raw, like some movies he's done before, or maybe something that was shocking just for the sake of being shocking, but this was just refreshing, interesting, contemporary and thought-provoking. I'm still thinking about the whole class issue and how some things seem unavoidable depending on where you grew up... Thank you Gael!!!
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4 out of 47 people found the following review useful:
a critical view of Mexico social interactions, 7 June 2008
8/10
Author: csainz from Mexico

I found this movie stimulating. It is true that the themes that the movie touches are touched lightly but enough you make them evident, Gael made an accurate portrait of Mexican upper class. I also believe he made the decision not to make things obvious, and I found that decision to be correct, it would make the film feel artificial for Mexican viewers, and I believe the movie is targeted precisely for Mexican viewers. The movie doesn't explain things to you with apples, and that's where its beauty is. The lack of interest of the upper class towards anything other than its own lives is patent from the very start of the film, we see the main character go thru what seems to be a local group of protesters without ever wondering why are they there... they're just an obstruction on his way. The everyday interactions with the lower class is depicted with delicacy and accuracy. There are some goofs in the film, but over all, a very interesting film. Mexico needs this kind of films that are critical to the status quo, that invite to reflection, instead of the inertial film making that leads towards telenovelas kind of stories. I would love to see more filming of this kind being done in Mexico. It is unnecessary to say that many people will come to see this film because of Gael, and that is a good thing because many of those would not have seen it otherwise, even if the message is not obvious the denunciation is there.
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Well, I'm going to record it, if I remember.

And as for music here is Alaska y Dinamara ... a rather weird little song which might be called abracadabra or maybe La Bola de Crystal... here we go then...



and the words...

Fíjate en el sol que brilla
encima de la camilla
sin pilas ni enchufes a la red,
puedes ver como en videocassette.
Esta bola adivina
pone música divina
y sin plato ni amplificador
suena igual que en la televisión.
Zoom, zoom..., culombio, culombio
zoom, zoom..., y me pego un voltio,
apréndete estas palabras
son el nuevo abracadabra
zoom, zoom..., faradio, faradio
zoom, zoom..., y me importa un vatio
que tiene esta bola
que a todo el mundo le mola.
Te sientas enfrente
ves como el cine
todo lo controla, es un alucine
es como un ordenador personal
es la Bola de Cristal.
Sintoniza los canales
foráneos y nacionales
>>>>

con sistema Secam o Pal
se ve todo como muy real.
Retransmite sus inventos
diferidos o en directo
cine, musicales y ajedrez
o parchis relevos 3 x 100.
Zoom, zoom..., culombio, culombio
zoom, zoom..., y me pego un voltio
apréndete estas palabras
son el nuevo abracadabra.
Zoom, zoom..., faradio, faradio
zoom, zoom..., y me importa un vatio
que tiene esta bola
que a todo el mundo le mola.
Te sientas enfrente
ves como el cine
todo lo controla, es un alucine
es como un ordenador personal
es la Bola de Cristal.
Te sientas enfrente
ves como el cine
todo lo controla, es un alucine
es como un ordenador personal
es la Bola de Cristal.

Maybe she needs to get out a bit more !