Belarus is a small country: a population of around 10 million people, an area of a little over 200 thousand square kilometers. For many years I understood that not everyone abroad even knows such a country; I used to have to explain that it’s between Ukraine, Poland, and Russia. (Surprisingly, Cypriots for some reason often do know the country — which genuinely caught me off guard.)
And yet our country sometimes pops up here and there in movies. Okay, Russia — it’s been a longtime supplier of villains with terrifying English accents, since it’s the old enemy. But Belarus? Still, quite well-known creators have slipped this country into their films. And that’s what we’ll talk about today — the examples I know.
John Wick
So, let’s start with the most famous Belarusian son in the movies — the unkillable hitman John Wick. John Wick is a multi-million-dollar film franchise with Keanu Reeves in the starring role. In action films built around fight choreography, it’s not really customary to tell you much about the hero. And up until the third movie, nobody said anything at all about John Wick’s past.
But here’s a funny surprise. In the original English version, his nickname is the Boogeyman. That’s the character people in Western countries use to scare disobedient kids. The closest counterpart in Slavic mythology is Babai, Babaika. But the Russian translators decided to adapt the image even more closely, and instead of the Boogeyman they called John “Baba Yaga,” which is generally in tune with “Boogeyman,” but in the first films it raised more questions than anything. (In Russian, Baba Yaga is a female character — a scary old hag — so it’s also odd for Russians that the guy ends up with a “female” nickname.) What Baba Yaga? He’s a guy — and anyway, where’s Baba Yaga and where’s this colorful Keanu Reeves?
But in the third film, John Wick suddenly went to his native clan, and we learned some interesting details about his origins. He says — I quote — “My name is Jardani Jovonovich, child of Belarus.” Now that’s where Baba Yaga suddenly felt right — unexpectedly, even for the translators themselves, I think.
The Belarusian clan looks more like a camp of battle-hardened gypsies; Jardani Jovonovich is a very non-Belarusian name — but oh well. You can be proud of sons of Belarus like that. In 2020 people were really waiting for him out on the streets, but for some reason he didn’t show up — and here we are, reaping the fruits.
An American Tail
In 1986, Steven Spielberg, as a producer, presented an animated film by Don Bluth (the very same one who also made the wonderful Anastasia). In the original, the film was called An American Tail, but in Russian release it came out under the title An American Tale. I honestly don’t know whether that was a translators’ joke or not, because the English tail (a tail) sounds exactly like tale (a story).
As a kid, I really liked the cartoon. It told the story of a Jewish mouse boy named Fievel who, after yet another pogrom in the late 19th century in Tsarist Russia, emigrated with his family to America. I won’t retell the whole plot — just one detail.
At some point, Fievel remembers a story his father told him about a giant mouse from Minsk — a mouse so big that all the cats were afraid of it. He tells it to his new friends, and together they build a mouse like that to fight the American cats:
So Minsk mice are John Wick’s ancestors — some things are in your blood.
World War Z
In 2013, the film World War Z came out, with Brad Pitt in the starring role. The movie is a very loose adaptation of Max Brooks’s book of the same name, about a sudden epidemic that turned most of the planet’s population into zombies.
In the story, Pitt’s character is forced to flee from an onrushing horde of zombies in Israel. Israel held out for a long time, but in the film it doesn’t make it (in the book, by the way, it’s actually one of the countries that does hold out against the invasion). Everyone is trying to get out of the country by plane, but none of the planes can take off. Except one — apparently flown by the bravest and most skilled pilots. That’s the one the main character escapes on.
And all because that plane is from the country of heroes: it belongs to “Belarus Airways.” Of course, no such company exists — the only Belarusian airline is called Belavia — but still, all Belarusians were delighted:
Sherlock Holmes and the Belarusians
Do you remember which role made Benedict Cumberbatch world-famous? Sherlock Holmes, in one of the modern reimaginings of the legendary detective’s adventures — the series Sherlock.
No, they didn’t reimagine it that radically as to make Sherlock Belarusian. It’s just that in the third episode of the first season, Sherlock suddenly goes to Belarus and talks to a local prison inmate. And for some reason there’s a balalaika playing in the background.
The scene is fleeting, but still: they manage to show Sherlock with the state flag covering an entire wall behind him. And when a bit later in the episode Dr. Watson asks, “So what about the Russian’s case?”, Sherlock — as a true connoisseur of the differences between nations — points out his friend’s mistake: “Belarusian. A simple domestic murder. Not worth the time.”
There are actually lots of examples. So — to be continued…
