A new TV show I am watching as I post. I think I love it already based on this quote alone:
“There are a lot of negative stereotypes about the Irish. People think we’re a bunch of drunks and brawlers. Sometimes that makes you so mad that all you wanna do is get drunk and fight.”
Heh.
few weeks ago during my French training we watched the film _Les Choristes_ (a.k.a. The Chorus in English).
I’d been wanting to see this movie for over a year. It had played at one of the repitory theatres here in town, but I never quite got around to it.
Anyway, the movie was filmed and French and as this was a French class, we also watched it with the French subtitles turned on (makes it much easier to understand what people are saying that way). Even watching it in my less than stellar second language I thought the film was brilliant.
The main story of Les Choristes is how a failed musician takes a post as a teacher at a “troubled boys school”. As you may predict, he manages to pull together the boys and form a chorus, which of course is generally well received (except by the school’s strict headmaster).
While the teacher-reaches-troubled-students-through-art is hardly an original premise, the story is nonetheless touching (particularly little Pepineau). The thing that gives this movie its edge is the music. All the choir music is original for the film and it is absolutely gorgeous. One of my favourites – Vol sur ton chemin – was nominated for an Oscar last year, I believe.
(Although I must say I’m glad I didn’t know the song at the time, because to hear Beyonce Knowles butcher it probably would have been more than I can take.)
I ended up renting the film that same weekend and watching it again with the English subtitles, and was pleasantly surprised to note that I missed very little of the story in French.
It’s not original, but it is archetypical, and those types of stories cross language barriers.
Handy list to have if you ever become an Evil Overlord.