Today, I learned about:

Over a decade ago, the leading manufacturer of mobile phones in the world was a Finnish company, Nokia. At that time, they made a worldwide survey asking people one simple question: You are out in town having fun and when you leave the bar you forget to take one of the following things with you: your wallet or your mobile phone. Which one can you not afford to lose? Already at that time, the big majority of respondents said that they would opt for the mobile phone. And if the same survey was conducted today, I have no doubt that the outcome would be the same, but in even bigger majority for the phone.

I remembered that survey some months ago when I watched a movie on Netflix, a French film named Le jeu (“The game”), in which three married couples and a bachelor friend of theirs meet for dinner during a total eclipse of the Moon, when strange things are said to happen. The central objects during this dinner are, you guessed it, the seven mobile phones belonging to each one of the participants. They start to play a game where all phones are placed in the middle of the dinner table, and when a call or message enters, everyone is allowed to listen in on the contents, because supposedly, no one has anything to hide, right? I will not spoil what happens next, but urge you to look at it yourself, see reference #1 below. It is well worth your while!

Then in January, while listening to Radio Sweden, their news correspondent in the Middle East, Cecilia Uddén, reported about a film with a similar story. This time it was making a big scandal with its contents in Egypt and there was even a parlamentary member who wanted to forbid Netflix to act in Egypt. One detail that made him furious was the lack of a particular item of female clothing, can you guess which? See also references # 2 and 3 below.

In her report, Cecilia also mentions that the film was an Arabic remake of an originally Italian film from 2016, named Perfetti Sconosciuti, which made a big success and won the Italian counterpart to the Oscar, David di Donatello, for the best Italian film of the year. You can read more about and of its 18 remakes in different languages which was inserted in the Guinness Book of Records in 2019 as being the film with the largest quantity of remakes, in reference #4 below.

Now I got really curious, so I asked a friend of mine, a real cinephile, about it. Of course, he did not only know it, but also had his own copy on DVD, something that I had searched for in vain over to the internet. Here is a photo from the Italian version:

Then I also found a Spanish version from 2017 on Netflix, reference #5.

Unfortunately I have only seen these four versions, but I must say that I enjoyed all of them very much, being very similar in almost everything, but adapted to local names, types of food etc. But If I had to vote for only one of them, I would definitely go with the original, Italian version, which seems more genuine and complete. What do you think? Please leave a comment and I will tally the answers and let you know in a future post.

Today’s photo, sent to me by a faithful follower, shows Plaça de Catalunya i Barcelona, Spain, the city’s biggest square and a natural meeting place in the center. Thank you for your contribution once more!

That’s what I learned in school today!

Ref.:

1: Le jeu

2: Egyptisk parlamentsledamot vill förbjuda Netflix

3: Perfect strangers

4: Perfetti Sconosciuti

5: Perfectos desconocidos

*: What did you learn in school today ?