Russian
- Hours: 6.
- Read: Nothing much. An article here or there.
- Wrote: 1701 words - the Output Challenge is off to a good start! It definitely won't continue this well, but it's been nice to try and get in the habit of it. How do you guys decide what to write though?! I basically always end up writing book or film summaries, which is useful, but it's the same kind of thing every time! I always end up staring at the page, trying to figure out what to talk about.
- Watched: Земля. (Silent). I can see why people love Dovzhenko and there is some lovely filmmaking, but he just doesn't work for me at all.
Однажды двадцать лет спустя.
I weirdly loved this, I thought it was very sweet and funny at times. Is it basically a glorification of motherhood? Yes, but a very nice one. If you're looking for something light and cheerful, I'd defintely recommend it.
Школьный вальс
So this is the second Liubimov film I watched (after Women), and again, the moralising just leaves me cold. I actually prefered Women, because in spite of the moralising all the characters felt more fleshed out and they made a range of choices, good and bad. I just didn't really feel a connection to any of these characters, or that I knew anything about their motivations. However the protagonist is gorgeous.
The last time I tracked what I was watching was a while ago, so here is a potted summary of the few weeks between then and Jan: Русалка (2007) (this is adorable and hilarious, I would absolutely recommend it. It's sort of a kind of magic realism in a way, but if that's not your thing, you could also see it as being in the protagonist's head? The characters are all really well done, just stopping short of being stereotypes. Mostly though, it's just really funny). I watched a bunch of silent films, which I won't list, but if you're interested in that, let me know.
I also watched Случайная встреча, which is one of the most obvious propaganda films I've seen - nice strong Soviet worker overfills her quotas, has a baby, wins the record for the 400m. It's cute, but not brilliant.
Женщины - I thought this was good, but incredibly moralising about women's choices, which just left me cold. There are some beautiful scenes and the acting is excellent, but I could have done with less judgement/punishment for some of the characters.
French
- Hours: 4.5
- Watched: Several episodes of Ainsi-soient ils. I only really started this because I'd seen it recommended here on the forum, and I'm so glad I did. I'm watching it with my mum and we are basically incapable of stopping after one episode. It's really well done, and manages to acknowledge the range of experiences that people have, the ways we all succeed and fail. I'd recommend it, regardless of whether you're studying French. We watch it with subtitles, because mum's French is limited (and my religious knowledge/vocabulary is limited, even in English).
That and memrise has been most of my French work this last week, which I suspect will be pretty much the case until the end of exams. I want to keep it ticking over, but in the list of priorities, it's not really high.
