Golden Voices
hits the right note

The Jewish and Israeli Film Festival’s third offering is a delightful tale of compassion

By Byron Toben

February 10, 2022

I enjoyed the first two entries in the annual Jewish and Israeli Film Festival, streamed this year since the pandemic made the original plan for screenings at the Dollar Cinema untenable. The third entry, Golden Voices, really grabbed me as its many layers of compassion unravelled.

Around 1990, after Gorbachov’s Glasnost in Russia, there was a major jump in the numbers of Soviet Jews permitted to emigrate to Israel. This film follows the fortunes of two of them, a 60ish married couple, Victor and Raya (Vladimir Friedman and Maria Belkin), both successful “dubbers” into Russian of foreign films.

To start their new life, they thought to create Russian-language radio plays for the growing new community, however, contacts disabused them of this as the arrivals were more interested in practical advice on mortgages, rentals and recipes.

Golden Voices follows the fortunes of a married couple, Victor and Raya, both successful “dubbers” into Russian of foreign films.

All of this is against the background of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein threatening to attack and Israelis being issued gas masks.

Victor postpones joining a newly-formed Russian live theatre and stumbles upon a store selling DVDs of popular American and other films dubbed into Russian, not realizing until it is too late that these are illegal pirated films, and the store is closed down.

Raya succeeds at obtaining a telemarketing job, ostensibly pushing perfumes, but quits upon realizing it is a front for phone sex.

Scene from Golden Voices – Image: courtesy of Jewish and Israeli Film Festival

Victor obtains a city job that entails lots of walking, which causes great blisters. Raya reconsiders the phone sex job out of desperation for the money and slowly is drawn into revelling in it as her marriage is becoming boring.

‘I was impressed by some of the voices he [Friedman] did – Kirk Douglas in Spartacus, Marlon Brando in On The Waterfront, Dustin Hoffman in Kramer vs. Kramer – and his delight in Fellini while the market demanded Home Alone.‘

Victor’s dubbing possibilities are further complicated by his perfectionism in getting into the soul of the actors he dubs after watching them multiple times along with reading the Russian translations by top translators.

I was impressed by some of the voices he did – Kirk Douglas in Spartacus, Marlon Brando in On The Waterfront, Dustin Hoffman in Kramer vs. Kramer – and his delight in Fellini while the market demanded Home Alone. (Raya had also nailed Fellini with her role dubbing Giulietta Masina in Nights of Cabiria.)

Raya eventually leaves Victor but they are reunited as he races to find her when Iraq attacks to bring her gas mask that she had neglected as being too ugly – and he does spot her, where else, but alone in an otherwise empty cinema!

The festival continues on February 12 with Greener Pastures and concludes on February 19 with Persian Lesson.

jewishpubliclibrary.org

Feature image: courtesy of the Jewish and Israeli Film Festival

More articles from Byron Toben

Byron Toben, a past president of The Montreal Press Club, has been WestmountMag.ca’s theatre reviewer since July 2015. Previously, he wrote for since terminated web sites Rover Arts and Charlebois Post, print weekly The Downtowner and print monthly The Senior Times. He also is an expert consultant on U.S. work permits for Canadians.