''Love Translated'' is a 2010 Canadian documentary film directed and edited by
Julia Ivanova which premiered at the 46th annual
Chicago International Film Festival
The Chicago International Film Festival is an annual film festival held every fall. Founded in 1964 by Michael Kutza, it is the longest-running competitive film festival in North America. Its logo is a stark, black and white close up of the comp ...
.
Synopsis
Ivanova documents 10 men from the United States, Canada, France and Sweden as they travel to
Odesa, Ukraine
Odesa, also spelled Odessa, is the third most populous city and municipality in Ukraine and a major seaport and transport hub located in the south-west of the country, on the northwestern shore of the Black Sea. The city is also the administrat ...
, on a romantic tour, arranged by an
online dating
Online dating, also known as internet dating, virtual dating, or mobile app dating, is a method used by people with a goal of searching for and interacting with potential romantic or sexual partners, via the internet. An online dating service ...
company
AnastasiaDate, to look for possible wives. While there, the men go to several social events, including a beauty pageant at a nightclub, where they meet large numbers of attractive, single women. The interactions at the socials and on the dates the men go on are facilitated by translators.
The 84-minute movie is broken into 10 segments or chapters, one for each day of the trip, and each with its own subtitle. It uses a
framing device
A frame story (also known as a frame tale, frame narrative, sandwich narrative, or intercalation) is a literary technique that serves as a companion piece to a story within a story, where an introductory or main narrative sets the stage either fo ...
of footage of Michael Lau, a Chinese man living in Richmond, British Columbia, who states he has never had 'real girls' in his life, at the beginning of the film. He says that after 30 years in Canada, he is under family pressure to get married. Other men include Calvin, a Marine veteran; Ramon, a doctor; and Ernie, a man from Minnesota. Except for Lau, the other men who don't reveal their last names, cite bad experiences with women, including divorces, as their motivation for joining
AnastasiaDate, an online dating site, and going on the trip. They believe that Ukrainian women have more traditional values when compared to the values of non-Ukrainian women.
At the end of the movie, Lau is shown back in his apartment, using his computer to explore the AnastasiaDate.com website after having gone on 10 dates during the trip but failing to find a woman who returns his interest. The film closes with superimposed text that states only one relationship resulted from the trip: one of the interpreters, Lilya, divorced her husband six months after filming, and moved to Minnesota with her daughter to marry Ernie.
Critical reactions
''
Variety
Variety may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats
* Variety (radio)
* Variety show, in theater and television
Films
* ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont
* ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
'' described the movie as, "Far more entertaining than reality TV's ''
The Bachelor'', but with its own share of disturbing moments...".
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert ( ; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American Film criticism, film critic, film historian, journalist, essayist, screenwriter and author. He wrote for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. Eber ...
said, "It's
t certain timesexcruciating to gauge the degree of one-sided or two-sided exploitation on view". Volkmar Ritcher of the ''Vancouver Observer'' wrote that the "Film is briskly edited and always interesting but fairly sad too".
[ Kris Rothstein of '']Geist
''Geist'' () is a German noun with a significant degree of importance in German philosophy. ''Geist'' can be roughly translated into three English meanings: ghost (as in the supernatural entity), spirit (as in the Holy Spirit), and mind or int ...
'' magazine said, "While he film
He or HE may refer to:
Language
* He (letter), the fifth letter of the Semitic abjads
* He (pronoun), a pronoun in Modern English
* He (kana), one of the Japanese kana (へ in hiragana and ヘ in katakana)
* Ge (Cyrillic), a Cyrillic letter cal ...
raises interesting questions, it could have run a lot further with the subject matter." Erin Schowalter of Elevate Difference wrote on March 18, 2011, "All of the issues that normally come up when the topic of mail-order brides is discussed are on display: the somewhat primitivist notion that the women will be untainted by feminism
Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideology, ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social gender equality, equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern soci ...
and, therefore, more ideal; the objectification
In social philosophy, objectification is the act of treating a person as an object or a thing. Sexual objectification, the act of treating a person as a mere object of sexual desire, is a subset of objectification, as is self-objectification, th ...
of women’s bodies; the unequal power dynamics".
The film earned Ivanova a nomination for the Artistic Merit Award by Women in Film and Television
Women in Film & Television International (WIFTI) is a global network of non-profit membership chapters. Established in 1997, it is dedicated to advancing professional development and achievement for women working in all areas of film, video, an ...
Vancouver.
It also was screened at the 28th annual Vancouver International Film Festival
The Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF) is an annual film festival held in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, for two weeks in late September and early October.
The festival is operated by the Greater Vancouver International Film Festi ...
and the 2011 Little Rock Film Festival
The Little Rock Film Festival (LRFF) was an annual film festival held in Downtown Little Rock, Arkansas each spring. Based in the historic River Market District, home to the William Jefferson Clinton Presidential Library, the Little Rock Film Fes ...
. On Sept. 28, 2011, it aired on Discovery Fit & Health
Discovery Life is an American cable television, cable television network owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. Launched on February 1, 2011 as Discovery Fit & Health, it was the result of the merger of the Discovery Health Channel and FitTV, followi ...
.
References
External links
*
*{{Official website, http://www.lovetranslatedonfilm.com/
2010 films
2010 documentary films
Canadian documentary films
Films shot in Ukraine
Films about online dating
2010s English-language films
2010s Canadian films
English-language documentary films
English-language Canadian films