Poor Saps

Movie: Love Translated

My Rating: 4 stars

Now, this is an interesting documentary.  It’s one of those ones that has you yelling at the TV screen for how exasperating all the “characters” in it are.  But, they aren’t really characters.  This film tells the story of real people—very sad, pathetic people.  This documentary is about the pitiful, sleazy men that pay a lot of money to go on “bride tours” of the Ukraine.  They pay thousands of dollars to be bussed around Odessa, visiting nightclubs, beauty pageants, and restaurants.  While on the tour, these men can meet Ukrainian women who are interested in marrying a Western man.  These guys haven’t had much luck with love in their home countries, so they join these tours hoping to bring back a tall, blond, “family oriented” (read subservient) woman to be their wives.  These men come from all kinds of different countries—Canada, the United States, Sweden, France—but all of them are Western.  And, they all have different reasons for being on the tour.  Some of them are painfully shy and have a hard time talking to the career girls back at home.  Others have been through nasty divorces, and have soured on uppity Western women, with all their book larnin’ and self-esteem.  And, some are just perverts—those creepy guys with greasy hair, who stare at teenage girls’ legs just a little too long. 

The reasons for paying tons of money to join a Ukrainian matchmaking service are diverse, but all of these guys have one thing in common.  All the guys in this film seem to find women to be these baffling, exotic, interchangeable creatures.  And, they want to get their hands on one—any one.  It doesn’t really matter which statuesque, blonde beauty they bring home, since they won’t be able to talk to their new bride anyway.  As long as they have a hot little number to parade past their ex-wives—or to bring along to their forty-year high school reunion.  That’s right.  Most of these guys are about forty years older than the nubile, little, eighteen-year-old girls that are members of this matchmaking club.  So, it’s no surprise that most of these girls end up accepting free dinners, drinks, and gifts from these elders, but decide they should “get to know each other better over the internet” instead of going home together when it comes to the end of the tour.  I don’t think that all these girls are out to scam the men from the get go.  Maybe some of them really are interested in finding love.  But, it’s hard to get excited about starting a new life with someone who is older than your own father, and who doesn’t even speak your language.  All in all, this film is a pretty interesting glimpse into the minds of people you might not run into all that often.  But, I think it also has something to say about human nature in general.