Movies

One of the New Years challenges I got was to watch a couple of foreign language movies without subtitles and see if I could figure out what was going on. I picked The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari and Yamato. True, the former did have slides, which are sort of like subtitles, but I don't read German. I got the gist.

Yamato was a bit harder--I mistook the sweatheart for a sister. The movie follows the lives of several crewmen, proud of their ship, subject to hideous discipline, and getting pounded by American planes.

Perhaps the speech and text told more of the story. IIRC, Yamato didn't run up against much in the way of American aircraft until Sibuyan Sea and Samar (and then Ten-Go, of course). The depiction of Samar (if such it was) leaves out the task force's retreat. Possibly they didn't want to dwell on that part.

Ten-Go was a kamikaze mission for the ship, and here my lack of Japanese hurt: they showed no kamikaze planes--did the characters discuss it? If not, that's a weird omission.

From the purely Japanese PoV, the Americans come across as impersonal and deadly--impersonal until they kill his sweetheart's mother and eventually his sweetheart at Hiroshima. A bit santized...

I suppose I could rewatch with subtitles on, but I won't spend the time. The visual story is one I wanted.

There's a framing story, and I eventually figured out the motives on that one too. Interesting challenge--not one I'd want to try with something like My Dinner With Andre, though.