At the Movies

Tomorrow (Wednesday) is a national holiday in Russia.  It is Teacher's Day.  It's still a working day, but students teach the classes, and they give a concert for the teachers.  In honor of Teacher's Day, the rector of the Institute in Orsk invited all of the teachers and their families to a viewing of an American film, dubbed in Russian, at a local movie theater, and I went along for the experience and some language exposure.

Have you seen the recently released film "Abduction"?  It's an action thriller directed by John Singleton and starring Taylor Laurner, Lily Collins, and Sigourney Weaver.  I saw it today with my new Russian friends in a modern high-tech movie theater with high resolution projection, a fantastic sound system, and comfortable, reserved seats with lots of leg room.  I didn't understand all of the plot (until I read a Wikipedia synopsis of it after the fact) but it was easy to tell what was going on in the film.   Set in the US, the film was full of American good guys and Russian bad guys who were both after the same young American guy, the Americans trying to save him and the Russians trying to kill him.  Scene after scene showed the Russian guys shooting the American guys and the American guys shooting the Russian guys with interspersed scenes of car chases, explosions, and lots of action fighting.  The film has a happy ending, with the good American guys beating the bad Russian guys.

Professor Olga's son loved the film!

About half way through the film, my mind flashed back to a chance meeting I had with a Russian economics professor at the Institute the other day.  He had asked me a question that he thought I could give a simple answer to, "What is life like in America?  The only image we have of it is what we see at the movies."  I asked him if he had two free hours for me to answer that question, and he invited me into his class to speak about life in the US, which I did with the help of some English majors who translated my 45 minute impromptu speech.  That professor was at the movie theater today with many others.  After today's film experience, I can only shake my head and ask myself what they must think of us.  I have my work cut out for me as a cultural ambassador!