In order to survive, he invented a language
Director:
Screenwriter: Ilja Zofen/Wolfgang Kohlhaas
Starring: Navier Biskayat/
Type: plot of a play
Producer country/region: Russia/Germany/Belarus
The film Persian Class, released in 2020, tells the story of a Jewish youth who narrowly escaped death in a concentration camp during World War II. The film premiered in the special screening unit of the 70th Berlin International Film Festival, and was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film in the 34th Golden Rooster Award of China and the Tiantan Award in the 10th Beijing International Film Festival.
A story inspired by real events
The protagonist in the film Persian class is a Jewish youth. He uses the names of the persecuted people in the concentration camp to fabricate a fake Persian, falsely claiming that he is a Persian who lives on thin ice in the concentration camp.
The film Persian class is adapted from the short story Inventing a Language, which is one of the most famous screenwriters in Germany — — Wolfgang Kohlhaas, after compiling many true stories.
Wolfgang, born in Berlin in 1931, was accompanied by World War II throughout his adolescence. With the defeat of Germany, at the age of 16, he began to work as an editor in a magazine, and gradually got to know and reflect on this war. After he learned about many real events of the Jewish Holocaust, he wrote this novel.
The story in the novel is also presented in the film directed by the director.
In the film, stine, the Jew who manages finance for Schindler and German officers, corresponds to the real figure in history. In the Prasho concentration camp during the Second World War, Pan Bo was always used by the German officer Gert in the concentration camp to organize documents for him because of his excellent memory.
The road to survival filled with smoke
Giles, the hero of the film Farsi Class, survived in the concentration camp on the condition that he must teach German officers to learn Farsi within two years.
In fact, however, Gilles doesn’t know anything about Persian. He has to make up 40 Persian words out of thin air in 12 hours’ work. Without pen and paper, he can only remember these words by memory. In the inhuman concentration camp, he is equivalent to dancing on the tip of a knife, facing the threat of death at any time.
The fake Persian in the film was created by the film director vadim perelman and professional linguists. They extracted the names and birth dates from the real victims list, and created new words and grammatical rules, which closely linked the language with the victims in the refugee camps.
There are many examples of creating languages in literary works and movies. For example, john tolkien, the original author of the film series, invented elvish and dwarf languages based on Latin and inspired by Finnish and Greek. Or Klingon in the film series, the grammar comes from the North American Indian tribe, close to the Aztec language family, and a relatively perfect artificial language is constructed, and there are special teaching materials for fans to exchange and use.
Language talent behind Persian
The actor who plays the Jewish youth is Navier Biskayat. It can be said that without this actor, the play may not be filmed, because it requires a high language talent to play this role, and Neville happens to be a talented actor who can speak six languages.
Born in Navel, Argentina, his mother tongue is Spanish. I learned French after filming for three months, and the script of the film Persian class was originally written in Russian, then translated into English, and finally translated into German that even the director himself could not speak. However, with his amazing memory, Navier not only remembered the lines, but also remembered 600 fake Persian words originally created by the director, which presented today’s story.
Let’s follow Neville into today’s best film — — Persian class, to see how the protagonist uses a new language and remembers a period of history.
This program is live.
In this Saturday’s edition of CCTV-6 movie channel "A Good Movie with a Date", the presenter Jiang Xiaohan will take you into the movie "Persian Class" and listen to the echoes from history with you. In the Sunday film review edition, Xie Yingling, the host, together with A Lang, film critic Zhuo Bieling and screenwriter Jin Yuxuan, will continue to interpret the drama arrangement and characterization in the film for you.
Welcome to this issue of CCTV-6 movie channel "A Good Movie with an Appointment".
Saturday, August thirteenth
22:22 Saturday Promotion Edition
22:31 Persian class
Sunday, August 14th
13:00 Persian class
15:00 Sunday Film Review Edition