Katya: Is your wife a good woman?
Lucas: Very much so.
Katya: And yet, here you are.
Lucas: That's true. Here I am.
Katya: You don't think this requires an explanation?
Lucas: My wife and I are old friends. And sometimes, with an old friend, you learn to squint away certain things, things you'd maybe rather not see.
Katya: Is it just her doing this not-seeing or you, too?
Lucas: The thing about squinting, you can never be certain what you might not be seeing.
Katya: My... grandfather was in the Gulag. You know about the Gulag?
Lucas: Of course.
Katya: He always said there were two types of prisoners. Some of them, you put them in a wooden hut, and you give them a flint, and they'll use the flint to try and light the stove, and they'll pass years like that. Night after night, striking the flint, trying only to keep from shivering.
Lucas: The others?
Katya: You give them a flint, and they'll burn the hut down.
Lucas: You're saying my wife and I, we light the stove.
Katya: Do you?
Lucas: I'm so sorry for the bird.
Katya: [chuckling] Where did you hear that?
Lucas: Your brothers.
Excerpt from Siberia movie script by Scott B. Smith
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Photo by Natalia Drepina |
“Yet another longwinded toast from “The Caucasian Prisoner” concludes as follows: "And so when the flock of birds headed south for the winter, one small but proud bird said, I will fly straight to the sun! She flew higher and higher, but very soon she burned her wings and fell to the very bottom of a deep gorge. So let us drink to this: let not a single one of us ever break away from the collective, no matter how high he flies!"
Shurik, who is totally wasted by that point, starts to cry. “What is it, my friend?" his host asks. “I’m so sorry for the bird!” Shurik replies, his eyes full of tears. "I'm so sorry for the bird!” has been a popular catchphrase in Russia for half a century; it is often used to break tension or make things sound a bit less formal and serious." [Source]
Photo by Natalia Drepina |
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