Saturday night is movie night.  There’s no earthly reason why it needs to be Saturday night, but I usually have Sunday off and it gives me something to look forward to.  Well, this Saturday we decided to watch a movie with Ashura, our wonderful cook.  Doing so, though, requires picking something that is extremely plot-driven and doesn’t rely on a firm grasp of American culture.  Something like Speed.  I remember the first time I saw Speed, in my best friend Kelly’s basement bedroom, both of us cross-legged on the floor, and how we instantly fell in love with Keanu Reeves.  His liberal utilization of profanity impressed us to no end and we mutually decided he was pretty much the hottest thing we had ever seen (he was in People Magazine’s 50 Most Beautiful People issue that year and I mooned over him for a solid 3 months…am I embarrassed about this now?  Probably.).  Anyway, watching Speed in Tanzania and translating it into Swahili as it goes ended up being a might different from that first viewing.  For example, we spent the first fifteen minutes trying to explain just exactly what an elevator is.  “See, there are these really, really tall buildings in America and because they are so tall, we have these rooms that can carry people up and down them really fast.”  Ashura was all rapt attention.  Then, to ease future explanations, we started giving everyone nicknames.  Keanu was “the beautiful one” (I hope you just gagged a little, because I sure did).  Dennis Hopper was “the crazy guy”.  Sandra Bullock was just “the sister” (a younger woman without children is just called “sister” here).

Anyway, things proceeded at a steady clip, with us taking many a liberty in our explanations of the happenings on screen.  The tourist character became “the farm boy”, a kind of derogatory term for someone who is, basically, a hillbilly.  We didn’t know how else to explain his incessant picture taking at inappropriate junctures.  The guy who shoots the bus driver is a pot dealer (hey, maybe this is true) and the bus is just a big daladala (daladala are the local buses here, which are really just crappy vans with approximately 12 seats into which they can realistically fit about 35 people…not comfortably, mind).  When Keanu is under the bus trying to dismantle the bomb and he and Jeff Daniels are throwing around circuitry jargon, we just said helpful things like, “This bomb is difficult,” and, “the beautiful one is not clever enough for this bomb.” Ashura was amazed that Sandra Bullock could drive a bus “just like a man” and kept announcing with some certainty that they all were going to die and then, later on, no, they all would win.  She tsk-ed constantly at the heartless murders carried out by “the crazy one”, clucking her tongue when he shot the subway driver in the back.  When the bus leapt over an enormous gap in the freeway, nosing into the air in a manner beyond physically impossible and then landing on the other side, she cheered enthusiastically, high-fiving me and squirming around in delight.  And then, every five minutes or so, she would exclaim, “They are surprised!” when the director did another pan over some actor’s face, his mouth hanging wide.  People are often “surprised” in Speed.

Anyway, it was a refreshing take on an old favorite and I doubt I will look at Speed the same way again.  Or maybe I should say ever again.