Carol's Journey

After viewing this movie without subtitles in class, I went home and watched it with the subtitles to better understand the movie. In actuality it did little to enhance my understanding of the film. I was quite surprised by this. I thought that the film was a good one. Carol's character ,while quite boyish, was easily likable. I think for the most part she fit in well in the Spanish culture. She was able to make friends and even have her first love. I like that her character was a little sassy and tended to go her own way at times. I'd like to think that this was her American side coming out. She struggled to bend to some of the customs in Spain. She was not Catholic and basically was considered all but a heathen in the eyes of the intense Catholic public. She agreed to attend first communion and become Catholic but she was determined to do it her own way. She dressed more like one of the boys in a sailor suit rather than the elegant little dresses the girls had on during the ceremony. I think that this was another product of her being raised in the U.S. I think people in the U.S. are less conventional and more apt to go their own way depite what others may expect.
Despite Carol knowing how to speak and understand the Spanish language she sometimes had difficulities. She was unaware of some of the slang names that some of the children would call each other. This limited understanding made it difficult to defend herself verbally so she had to resort to kicking Tomi in his privates to get her hat back.
The very first thing that happened in the movie that I thought was indicitive of her limited understanding or her American way, was the way she behaved in the cemetary. We have learned through many of the films in this class how the Spanish culture views death and what reverence they pay to deceased relatives. In the beginning of the film, Carol's mother was standing over the grave and paying respect to her mother while Carol sat on the stone wall and was writing/reading in her diary. I am sure to any onlookers this would be the utmost disrespect. However, because Americans tend to view death in a different way her behavior would not have been an issue.
Overall, I think she did remarkably well in her adjusting to the different culture. I thought the film was cute. The only thing different about watching the movie with the subtitles was that you had a better understanding of the end of the movie and what was going on. Watching without subtitles you really didn't know that Carol was going to live with her grandparents and that indead her dad was captured or the grandfather assuring Carol that since her dad was American he did not expect him to be held for long.