Golden Voices

I expected this movie to be a good-spirited comedy that pays homage to the world of classic cinema. This assumption of mine wasn't totally wrong, however, the overall impression of the film was slightly different. This is a story of an old Jewish couple who were successful voice actors in Russia, but faces harsh realities after they immigrated to Israel. Since Russian actors are almost of no use in this country, the sixty-two-year old wife starts working in a phone sex service using her once cherished "golden voice". I laughed at the situation, but as the story progresses, I was saddened by the cruelty the wife eventually faces. You do not have to be a Russian immigrant to relate to the character. This movie is about people losing confidence and struggling to find the place in the world in their twilight years, which more or less, everyone's going to experience someday.

I laughed and I admit I cried. It tells the story of people who left their previous lives, with all their achievements, and friends. They hoped for better and believed that they'd be needed for their talants. Maybe it's the story of every immigrant, but just go and see it, you won't be disappointed..

My parents came to Israel at the 70's, not like the couple in the movie, but I still remember that I was laughing and teasing the dubbing teams for years. I grew up and still can't figure the need of grown people to watch movies with dubbing, but It is a European "Tradition" for many years.

This film is using this Title as a Sub-title to emphasis the struggle of a couple of midlife couple which immigrates to Israel at beginning of the 90's.

Victor and Raya are former dubbing duo, from Russia, which arrives at the beginning of the Gulf War with no specific Education except the ability to Dub Movies to Russian.

The main plot deals with the struggle of the couple with languish and finding Jobs, but inside this plot we can understand their love to the classic Cinema and Felini's Movies especially.

Both are having difficulties to detach themselves from their "old" culture, with and all that implies from this fact.

We've got a side story that goes to a sleazy area but ends with some of the best and emotional scenes of this film.

Yavgeny Roman turned to be quite of a local director and shows each and every time he is in the Big league of Israeli movie directors and once again he steers his ship to safe shores.

Very likable and easy to watch movie. But if this couple really were those who dubbed lot of good Western movies into Russian language, then I have to show my resentment to them.

There are so many good movies rarely survived after so many years, but when you got the chance to watch them, they turned out to be dubbed in Russian. You couldn't understand any original dialogue in English, every sentence was covered by the annoying, monotonous, no-feeling, no-emotion stupid voice over in Russian. All had to be reluctantly dismissed. But what could you done? Other than the Russian voice over version, there's nothing available, no matter how you tried to find it on line or in YouTube.

They were all completely ruined by the completely irrelevant Russian dubbers.

This movie simply deepened my resentment to those movies dubbed in Russian.

Golden Voices (2019) was co-written and directed by Evgeny Ruman.

It stars Mariya Belkina as Raya Frenkel and Vladimir Friedman as her husband, Victor Frenkel. The Frenkels had a successful career in Russia because they were very good at dubbing Hollywood films into Russian.

However, when they move to Israel, there isn't that much demand for their skills. Still, they might be OK, except that they don't have the movies to work with. So, they end up filming the films which, of course, is illegal. The plot is the story of how they survive in a country in which their skills are not needed.

The acting and direction are excellent. The movie appeared to be low-budget, and was a little rough around the edges. Still, I enjoyed it and recommend it. Golden Voices has a tepid IMDb rating of 7.1. I thought it was better than that, and rated it 8. We saw this film virtually as part of the outstanding Rochester Jewish Film Festival.