Moscow on the Hudson

1984 US
Dir: Paul Mazursky
Str: Robin Williams, Maria Conchita Alonso

The United States is completely different from other countries.
Watching this movie, I recognized anew the United States is a country composed of the people gathering together from all over the world. After all, if ignore the time of arrival, they are all from other countries except some indigenous Indian tribes. As a person born in a homogeneous country like Japan, the fact is very fascinating.
There seems to be several advantages and disadvantages solely
intrinsic to the United States.
In this movie, there is a scene in which all of the customers in a restaurant cite the constitution of the United States delightfully, which Japanese never ever practice. And, in the scene directly preceding to this scene, Robin Williams and a Russian immigrant, who have been fighting in the restaurant, instantaneously forget their fight as soon as they realize the day is Independence Day. I think these scenes are well reflecting both advantage and disadvantage of the American society. Because of the multi-nationality, American citizens seem to be always in need of something to stick together, something representing the symbol of unity, and, for that matter, the constitution or Independence Day seems to serve this role quite well. The fact that overcoming racial differences are so difficult that they need to be constantly reminded of the fact they are living in the same country might be one major origin of their problems. But, at the same time, it can be said that this is an unavoidable aspect of a precious experiment like people gather together not by the identity based upon pre-determined destiny like racial origin but by certain ideals and hopes, and the experiment has never been conducted in such a large scale before. This is the aspect that has attracted many persons to the United States over several centuries, and even instigate me to hope I, by myself, join and live there some day.
Versatility and the ability to juxtapose various different values are
the keys to achieving unity in future world.
By the way, these days, through the prevalence of the Internet, etc., at least in terms of information, a whole world seems to be becoming a big America. On the Internet and the real world in future, the same kind of problems as depicted in the film will surely happen. Because how the entire world can be united into one entity regardless of the differences of customs, habits, inclinations, and religions shall be always a major impediment to achieving it. Nevertheless, I rather would like to consider this way; that very difference will make it possible to unite, for I think versatility and the juxtaposition of various different values are the keys to the success in achieving certain ideals and hopes in future world. Up to the present day, human beings have made an uncountable amount of horrendous things based upon the monolithic view only effective to limited range. However contradictory it seems to be to retain diversity in the course of unification, it is absolutely imperative in order to avoid reiterating past failures. In this meaning, the film is very interesting, for we can pick up some ideas about it, as a Rassian in the film is saying in the last scene, "America is a strange country, but wonderful".
I had better warn them the scenes where Japanese appear are
rather reflecting their own internal mind state toward exotic things
than accurately rendering Japanese characteristics.
Finally I want to mention one minor thing about the movie as a Japanese. In this film, there are four scenes a Japanese appears. To tell the truth, I am not sure they are actually meant to be Japanese, for they are speaking English. But, judging by their attitudes, they must be Japanese, for they seem to be reflecting typical westerner's ideas of Japanese. First one is hanging a camera around his neck, and incessantly taking pictures. Second one is a cab driver. Firstly, I thought he was not a Japanese judging by physical features. But, he suddenly burst into speaking funny Japanese words whose approximate meaning is "Foreigners (gaijin, I presume you are familiar with this Japanese word) are always fussing about something". Third one is a girl who is overreacting to the fact she has become an American citizen. The last one is a middle aged woman who repeats her order mechanically because the clark is so busy fending off another customer (Robin Williams's wooing). They all look like weirdos even in the eyes of a Japanese. I am not saying these images are totally groundless, but I just want to suggest these kind of scenes may well reflect the way of thinking of the persons actually projecting these images. Sometimes, we, Japanese, feel strange when we have encountered strange Japanese words uttered in foreign movies. Although they might have been brought into as just an ornament or something like that, they often sound totally inappropriate for us so much so that a serious drama inadvertently turns into a comedy, because we can fully understand the meaning of the spoken Japanese words and can also understand we cannot understand wrongly structured Japanese sentences. But, anyway, it is also true that, by hearing those funny Japanese words in foreign movies, we are reminded of the fact Japanese are also one of them in the United States, along with Russians, Italians, Spanish, etc.

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