Culture, finally

Yesterday, I had one of the cultural experiences my soul has starved for. 

There was an Italian film festival at the time when I am not sleeping (anything related to culture normally starts at 9:30 pm in Portugal, following the dinner which starts at 8pm), and I entered a movie theatre at the cultural centre with no expectations as I had not bothered to read the Portuguese description of the movie. It was a semi-autobiographical film by Nanni Moretti called Dear Diary from 1994.

The Italian speech which overlapped the Portuguese subtitles that had some similarities with the Italian vocabulary I had picked up seeing all the 37 episodes of Montalbano burned my brain while watching a most relaxing first third of a movie which mesmerizing views and music. After the red silent initial credits, Moretti was driving a vespa through the 90s Rome only stopping to rant to encountered people something related to the cultural past. 

It really put to test what I always say to people who complain about the difficulty of watching a film in another language without fully knowing the subtitles: "You know, 75 % of communication is visual, and you already know maybe 20% of the subtitles which only leaves 5% a mystery and you can live with that." 

I was completely wrong. Listening to a foreign language you know very little about and at the same time reading quickly changing subtitles in a language you only know 20% of for almost two hours is not enough but causes a notable strain to your brain. A friend who accompanied had to take a pain killer half way. My partner who who lived in Italy and speaks Italian was completely confused by the combo of the two languages while he had to out of habit read the subtitles since they were there.

But I left the movie theatre happy with my 75% of the visual and musical experience and my limited understanding of what was said and a chance to be in bed at 9:30 as usual, after first hunting Dear Diary with English subtitles to buy. 

At 2:30 I woke up, letting out the stray cat who sometimes likes to stay overnight, and had a glass of red wine to write this, thinking of the hundreds of films I subtitled. That was a real contribution to the culture, popular or otherwise, which I now appreciated more than before.

  

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