As I have mentioned before most (it should really be all) mornings I walk on an elliptical walker down in the basement and watch movies.
It usually takes 3-5 days to watch each movie, or if it is a TV show series (for example, I just finished season 1 of Once Upon A Time), I watch one show each morning.
While I have not as many foreign films in recent days, they are among my favorite ones to watch.
There are a number of reasons.
First, it gives me a view into a country’s culture, though often not in a direct way. What we are seeing is a statement by a film director, within the confines of what he or she is allowed to create. So, for example it is always interesting to see examples of the very vibrant Iranian film production to see how a director puts together a story and is able to get it past state censors while still telling what they want. There is a little bit of that with all films regardless of the freedom of expression that is allowed since at a minimum a director has to pass through the limits of making a profit (or at least nominally doing so).
Second, operationally it allows me to play it a bit softer since I only need to read the subtitles not actually hear the words. With films with uneven sound quality sometimes the elliptical walker’s noise can make some passages hard to hear (or I guess I could accept the possibility that age has impacted my hearing altogether – perhaps fewer Grand Fund Railroad concerts in my youth would have been smart).
The most recent film I have been watching from my 480-some Netflix queue is a movie called Chak De! India (that is an exclamation point after the De).
Starring Shahrukh Khan, one of the big Bollywood stars, it revolves around a disgraced former men’s field hockey player who after seven years in self-imposed exile (after his disgrace – see the movie), becomes the coach of what is perceived as the incompetent India women’s field hockey team. The goal is to make them a ‘real team’ and get them to the field hockey world’s cup (telling us that there is a field hockey world’s cup, is there?). Unlike my most favorite and somewhat longer Bollywood film Lagaan which shows how the various sects within the India population have to work together, in Chak De, our hero has to bring together all of the geographical states.
It really is a very enjoyable film, I highly recommend it.