Monday, June 8, 2009

Snatch


There is the story, and then there is the way the story is told. Sometimes the two...the story and the telling...work together so that the two complement each other. Such is the case with Snatch.

For the first 20 minutes of the film I still wondered exactly what was happening, but then so were the characters in the half dozen plot lines. But then as the varied lines begin to converge, so did my understanding.

Same can be said for the language of the film. The various British dialects were nearly unintelligible because of the accents and the slang which punctuated every phrase, but as I listened I gradually understood more and more just as I understood the story more and more. Except with the Gypsy language. That I had to rely on a sense of what was happening. My co-watcher offered, early in the film, to select the subtitle option, but I choose not to rely on that tool because I like to watch and hear films...not read them. (Note: Since I do not speak only English, I realize that limits my film watching tremendously...but that’s how it..and I..is).

As the film progressed and the story threads tightened, so did my understanding so by the end I could sigh, a little exhausted, and say “good story.” But man, it sure was a lot of work. That might not be bad. Good things are worth working for.

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