Last night I went to the Kino Internationale to see a film with my boyfriend. This was the second time this month that we went to the cinema. Coincidentally, both of these films were in French with German untertiteln. The first was Monsieur Claude et seine Tochter, which was really well-written, funny, and smart. The second was by Xavier Dolan, a Montreal-based Canadian director and actor, called Sag nicht, wer du bist, and was a dark Thriller set in a small town in Quebec. Even though I am extremely picky, and couldn’t understand all the dialogue, I highly recommend both films.

I am not yet at the point where I can watch films in German and actually understand what’s being said. I can usually figure out what’s going on from intonation, various words that I recognize, and the actors‘ expressions, but it is not an immersive experience, and is quite difficult. My boyfriend, whose English is a good deal better than my German, doesn’t always feel like watching a movie in English. So we have to compromise. Somehow that compromise resulted in us watching two films in French in a row…

Now my French is significantly better than my German, but it is still not perfect. In the past when I watched films in French, I relied on English subtitles to carry me through the parts I couldn’t quite catch. No such luck when the subtitles are in German! Watching a movie in two simultaneously second (and third) languages made some entirely new geography in my brain, I am sure! I felt so completely exhausted after the experience! However, there were also moments when I achieved a strange transparency – where the otherness of the language disintegrated and I could immediately understand what was being said – whether this occurred by listening to the French or by reading the German I can’t be sure, but I recall it feeling momentarily easy.