Back In The USSR: 21 Up

[Ste]

On ITV1 UK monday night, anyone see it?

It was a documentary showing a group of Soviets filmed at ages 7, 14 and 21. Very interesting.

It's not funny really, my brother and his wife think FSU is 100% dirty, filthy flats and druggies everywhere. This prog did nothing to dispell this. Now my bro is telling Nadia not to 'do any dealing' whne she goes out! All in fun of course...

The were some touching moments tho; a girl with 10 brothers and sisters from an Orthodox family in Volgograd, shown at 7 yo, cooking and cleaning and doing chores was asked what she would most like to do. She siad in a weak voice almost in tears:

Igrat', igrat' (To play, to play)

Tragic.

I liked the twin boys from Pter, very good lads - deserve to succeed. They were asked what they'd like to grow up to be, one said sth like 'shopkeeper' the other said 'vacuum cleaner'!

We foulnd the subtitles to be woefully mistranslated and even totally wrong. One lad now living in USA was asked what happned to his brother. He said, mounfully 'On umer' or sth - ie 'he died'. The caption said rather cruelly 'He kicked the bucket'

Anyway - if I can grab the torrent I'll seed.

Ste

[Goombah]

Please post the torrent URL if you find it, I'll be happy to download and leave the client up to seed.

Kevin

[MandM]

Mark and myself watched this program and he said he's never seen anything more depressing. 7 year old boy who lost his parents when he was only two, was looking into the camera with eyes full of tears and saying that he can't remember his Mum but he is always having her in his dreams...  it broke my heart.

[dostogirl]

I remember watching similar programs in Russia. During Soviet times extended phycological observations were very popular. Different people were recorded for extended periods of time starting with their childhood and usually lasted for years. Very interesting. Those that I've seen were not very depressing, but not exciting either. None of those people became someone significant later in life. Just regular people, regular lives. May that's what makes those programs so scary..