The Stormy Petrel (2004) by Alexei Turkus

I was talking to my roommate this morning about other languages and he and I both speak multiple languages which, without boasting of myself, is somewhat uncommon in America. This, I think, is a well known criticism of our country, which is fine. To be quite honest, I love my second language, but I don't have a pressing need to use it, which is a shame because, Spanish, my second language, is a beautiful language. It's much more intelligent than we give credit for.

Anyways, in our discussion I said that Japanese is a really fun language to learn. (I should note that Japanese is his second language.) And we talked about how epic it is to hear "ski des" which roughly means "I love you" in a movie and how hilariously moving a moment like that is in japanese movies. Then he said something sort of interesting, he said "Japanese is like legos the way that it works" Meaning that while some of the romance languages may be more like painting or something like that, Japanese is like legos, one not being superior to the other, just different mediums and different interests.

Then I watched the above short film and started thinking about why this is so fascinating to me when I should be frustrated that I have to pay attention to the subtitles and miss some of the cleverness of the animation. And it dawned on me that even though I don't know russian, for me as an American, there is a weight that the language carries. I don't know if its the sort of weight or brand that is inherent in the culture or my own past experiences or just the cultural projections that America has produced through its media. What can I say? Its an intense language. The last russian house I was in, and this is true, the last russian house I was in the whole family could not speak to each other without yelling! The only english between the family was when the teenage son would say out of exasperation: "whatever". So I'm not generalizing and saying that all russian house hold are this way, it just happens to be the American perspective.

With other languages there are varying generalizations and perceptions that we as Americans project on to the entire people of a certain language and some languages are more versatile than others. I think most people associate french with being romantic and all that. Spanish has can be very seductive but on the other hand there are clint eastwood movies that make it sound really despicable. And Japanese sounds like legos, this all is very intuitive according to the American perspective. English from what I hear is a very "cool" sounding language. I've heard people who speak English as a second language say they feel "cool" when speaking it. This may be when thinking of american english, where as UK english we find very elegant and proper for the most part.

So I wonder about using language, under the American perspective as a tool for animations and films. What do we use them for? If we do use them, what does it seem like the purpose is to someone who has the language as their first language? They must have a different experience. I know that when I watch a movie like Vicky Christine Barcelona, I have a different view of the movie because I understood. When Penelope Cruz is trying to get the gun back and says "Dame la pistola, dame la pistola, que me des la pistola!" she says "Give me the gun, give me the gun, give me the gun!" But you see the third time, in spanish its different, but in English its the same because the spanish is using a tense that we don't really use in english. When she says, the third time "que me des la pistola" she is putting the phrase in subjunctive form, which makes the phrasing very strong, to the point of a beg but still being a command. With her language she is pushing her will onto his.

I have no real point here. But I think its interesting that for someone who doesn't understand the language they are viewing, words become even more abstract than they already are. A word is the most abstract descriptor that some how is the most concrete. If I say the word "tree" you know what I'm talking about. I don't need to show you a picture or paint you a picture unless you are severely autistic. Not only do you know what I am talking about, you also know everything that I am not talking about. I cannot assign the word "tree" to an object that is actually a dog, unless its his name. I say "tree" and you understand, I say "albero" you might not. You may be able to deduce that it is the spanish word for tree, but that is because I've told you I speak spanish and you trust me. Now if you also know spanish you may be thinking, he means arbol is the spanish word for tree, I don't know where he got albero. I got it from italian. Abstract things these words are. There is meaning in them, the form is a matter of subcontext.