World film project: Bangladesh

[liv]

Only a partial success, really. We really really struggled to find any films made in Bangladesh available on any kind of streaming service with English subtitles. And we kept getting misled because all the sites have at least 10X as many films that are made in India in the Bengali language, and it's hard to tell the difference because I think the target audience care more about language than county of origin.

We tried subscribing to a specifically Bengali streaming service, but didn't have any better luck with that. We watched an absolutely adorable 9-part TV series called Bouma Detective, but realized on about episode 5 that it's not only not a film, it's not from Bangladesh either, but from India. It was fun though, it's the story of a plump, middle-aged housewife who has to turn detective when her film-star husband is framed for the murder of his co-star. We really really loved the lead, and the Miss Marple call-outs, and the relationship arc where the unlikely couple fix the problems in their relationship and learn to appreciate each other again.

Eventually we watched a couple of shorts from the collection Sincerely yours, Dhaka, which is on Netflix at least. We liked one about a minor actor who can't afford a decent audition suit, so offers to pretend to be the father of a tailor's son in order to get him into a posh school. The second wasn't as appealing, it involved a couple of young women trying to get over a breakup by attempting to buy alcohol under prohibition.

So I think we're about ready to move on to Russia: any recommendations for a Russian film? We want something vaguely modern, at least post-Soviet if not within the last 10 years or so, partly because I'm not convinced that the USSR is the same country as contemporary Russia. I feel like Russia should be a bit easier since they have a well-established international film industry!

Or, if anyone is better at searching than we are and can find us a film actually made in Bangladesh, we might go back to that.

Comments

[ambyr]

The only Russian film I've seen that fits your specifications is The Daughter (why yes, it has the exact same title as the Pakistani film I recommended!). My notes from it say that I appreciated every part of its craftsmanship except the subtitles, which were honest-to-god the worst translations I've seen outside of pirated media (and possibly even including that). So, uh, if you watch it, be prepared for that. (It's also possible they've fixed the subtitles in the seven years since I saw it.) It is also a rather bleak crime film, which may not be to your taste.

(Also, the ending is REALLY WEIRD.)

[monanotlisa]

Have you tried asking your Bengali friends not on Dreamwidth for movies? I could ping one of my school friends, for example, though I also have an online one, the darling fatema.

[to_do_list]

I expected this to be easy until I realized that immigrating in 2000 means I am very aware of Soviet and early post-Soviet classics (up to early-mid 90s), yet I am completely lost as to what are good recent Russian films.

At least, you can find a very wide range of subtitled Russian movies on Youtube.

[solitarywalker]

The Fool (Bykov, 2014)

[(Anonymous)]

There's always The Spacewalker (Время первых) if you watched First Man and thought, 'you know, NASA's problem was that it was far too obsessed with the health and safety of its astronauts.'

[(Anonymous)]

Oh, and Why Don't You Just Die! (Папа, сдохни) has got good reviews, but my disk rental service hasn't sent me it yet so I can't say for certain.

[(Anonymous)]

Also Leviathan (Левиафан) got some good reviews over here; I watched it a few years ago and don't remember a whole lot except that it definitely wasn't short, so it clearly didn't blow me away, but if you want gritty social commentary it might be what you're after.

[doseybat]

I would to recommend Roads to Koktebel. Felt true to my Russia experiences and very pretty, and not the sort of thing that goes out of date quickly

[doseybat]

The other film I remember making a strong impression on me is To See Paris and Die: more about society, and older, and probably more out of date