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Konstantin Asimonov's avatar

Translation of "Отроки" as "Teens" for some reason is hilarious to me.

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Oleg's avatar

Yeah, отрок is quite a powerful word, encapsulating in itself the coming of age. Teen, on the other hand, not so much.

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Charlie Becker's avatar

This was an amazing essay. Funny enough, I also have a telenovela theme song from my youth I randomly bust out, but mine is from La Madrastra. Also, regarding this: "They had a roster of 20-30 Soviet-era oldies on repeat - movies that people who grew up in the 1960s-1980s knew by heart." It would be fascinating to see a list of some of these movies with summaries and links. This is the kind of cultural artifact I have no reference point for. Also, clicking on the video, I don't speak Russian of course, but I notice they do something films from other countries do a lot where they have clearly overdubbed the actors even though they're allegedly speaking the same language. I think it's really obvious in the scene at around 41 minutes.

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Oleg's avatar

I couldn't find a good article/arhive in English, but a good place to start might be this IMDB list - https://www.imdb.com/search/title/?country_of_origin=SUHH

Comedies seem like the most popular genre. At least, those movies that are most often quoted are comedies.

Regarding the overdubbing - I always thought this was because of sub-par audio equipment that they had to record voices separately. But in some cases it's also different actors dubbing someone else. It's still quite a popular technique in Turkish TV series. They will have extremely beautiful model-cum-actors that are dubbed by professional voice actors. Some even have professional relationships that span decades, and voice actors are known figures in their own right.

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