7.4.05 | Haiii- YAH! (Part Three: Lost In Translation)
So here we are.
The final post at last...
(thank feck fer that... i was starting to get bored)
As you might deduce from my two previous posts, i grew up being immensely fond of cinema from The Orient...alternately being delighted and awestruck at the subtleties of films like Rouge and Light The Red Lantern, then the all-out fightfests, war and mysticism of respectively, Mr Vampire, Ran and Hero... not to mention the occasional ultraviolence of such films as Hard Boiled and Battle Royale etc. I love 'em all!
I took da Pumpkin to see Hero at the flicks, ya know. Well, dragged... and she... didn't quite hate every minute... but she puts up with it cos i'm adorable or something.
"Great film!", i enthused all the way home to my long suffering Pumpkin... "Quite, quite beautiful! Heroic, too, would ya know! I say, Pumpkin!- wake up! Wasn't it a great film?!? Wasn't it?!?!"
Pumpkin might well have been a bit poorly at this point, i think, for she rolled her eyes and groaned a lot during my enthusement... something she ate, perhaps?
One of those films that one puts down in ones "must get" list for DVD's and such. Wow! We could watch it over and over!
So when it came out, i obviously bought it. Obviously.
... Unfortunately, Pumpkin happened to claim to be busy/ill/practising yogic calming techniques (Said the latter was necessary in order to prevent violent murders or something) on all the weekends i suggested we could watch it.
So alas, i ended up watching it alone. And it was there, midway through my happy solitary viewing, that i really did discover the power of words. And one word in particular.
That word being "Yaaargh!" (give or take an Ay, Ar, Gee, and Haich)
Yes, "Yaaargh!".
There i was, happily enjoying the action. The action at this point being a rather pretty duel between the female leads in an autumnal leafy setting. And the younger one attacks with a warlike cry:
"Yaaargh!" She cried.
And then "Yaaargh!".She did it again!
"Yaaargh!". And again!
And then guess what? A bit later on in the film, when i'd just about recovered from my disbelieving laughter...
"Yaaargh!"
"But Mr The Saturnyne, sir!- how do you know it is spelt like that?" i hear you ask.
Subtitles! (imagine i'm saying this word today, with the look of one who has just eaten a bit out of an apple. An apple with half a maggot within. And i'm a person who finds subtitles most agreeable... at least before yummy alcohol has reduced my skills at reading. Do you ever get that? Trying to read something while drunk, only to find the words are being mischievous and having a bit of a dance party on the page?).
Now call me an old fusspot if ya don't like life, but somehow i don't think i need that word being spelt out for me in the subtitles below. Not even if i'm deaf. No really! I think it's plain for all to see the emotion the young lady is trying to convey as she tries to carve her mistress into dogfud, i really do. And if we start heading down that road, who's to stop us from adding other sound effects to other films? fer example:
Violent moves would have words like "Skutch!" and "Shrikt!" added. Romantic couples running through ocean waves (or moody moonlit puddles) would have "Splish! Splash!" thrown nonchalanlty into them. Porn films, too... usually preceded by "Urgh! Ughhh!" Perhaps the odd "Sploosh" and "Shlipt" might crop up in there, too. I could go on, but i reckon yer get my drift by now...
Honestly.
"Yaaargh!"
Tchah!
Pathetic. And absurd. Totally ruined the film for me. I couldn't help but giggle at all the seriousness after that... I say sack these inept translators! I might also say, sack the dubbing guys on Crouching Tiger, as well. Cos i really don't think American accents suit the scenery, y'know. (No disrespect to my beloved Americky friends, btw).
Right. god knows what i'm gonna blog about next... i fear i may have some ridicule to throw upon Mr Popes funeral... but i fear rather more that i will have a few choice words to say about Mr Blair and other politicians regarding our forthcoming elections here in the U.K. I have a bone to pick with him...
15 comments :.
Hero wasn't too bad. Personally I look forward to Kung Fu Hustle. :-)
I've actually never seen a movie with subtitles yet. I love to read and I enjoy movies but I'm afraid the horridness I've heard surrounding the use of subtitles has caused me to incessently avoid watching them. It's made me think that the subtitles would ruin my luv of reading (which I just can't have), and at the very least make me distrust movies. It's the only reason I haven't seen Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
Kung Fu Hustle-just saw a preview for that today! (Fist day I watch tv in 2 months..must be a sign, hehe)
Kung Fu Hustle is HILARIOUS!!! LOL. You'd love it if you haven't seen. Crouching Tiger was unrealistic, too much Hollywood influence in my opinion, too much like junk food. >_<
And THAT is really 'wth' subtitling. o_O;;
Yaaargh?
As in the high-pitch scream the lead heroine utters as she goes flying pass, various articles of coloured garment streaming behind her and her pointy sword aimed at a random fiend's throat? XD
Well we have foreign films here that go "Horses running across screen" and "Sound of cupboard being opened" being flashed incredulously across the subtitle lines that leave us wondering about the intellectual levels of the person actually writing it..
'American dubbing' = a buffet of highly inaccurate and often rediculous translations. x__x
I imagine subtitles are not the perfect solution, but they certainly open up new worlds as far as cinema goes. However you're right, some things don't require translation :)
I love subtitles! Especially when I've seen the film the second or third time, then I actually start to notice all the unnecessary words.
Dubbing should be outlawed! Anyone caught dubbing a film should be staked out naked to a fire-ant hill and smeared with honey!
Saturnyne I agree, reading is near impossible once alcohol has entered the picture, then again, so is typing.
Yes, dubbing is evil (except maybe in Anime movies.) I had the misfortune of seeing a dubbed version of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon by mistake - never again!
And I actually pity the subtitle-phobic people out there. They are missing out on some of the best movies ever.
Btw, the sound effect subtitles are usually only part of the subtitles for the hearing impaired. I've never seen them used at a cinema.
Hero was overhyped, in my humble opinion.
As to forthcoming posts, there is always the wedding of Chaz and Horseface to comment upon. I find musing on the current state of UK politics a little depressing and a lot futile.
Janey/xx
PS...Iridescent, if you want to watch a great movie with subs try Zatoichi - it's really good, and quite funny, as well as aching noble.
I'm pretty sure when I saw Zatoichi it had subtitles. I try my damndest to stay away from dubbed movies. It harks back to the crazy martial arts films of the 70s and the character's mouth isn't moving, but they're still speaking. I hate that.
but yes, someone mentioned anime - my copy of Spirited Away wasn't subtitled - but considering that was mainly aimed at kids, I'm not surprised. I didn't mind the use of dubbing there...
Love the comm's guys!
Personally, i find that a good 70% of all my favourite movies are subtitled... with a good number coming from France and Hong Kong/China
I think my tope ten faves run thus:
1. Amelie... a utopian vision of Paris, sure... but so beautiful and romantic! It hits so many notes for me. Plus it's terribly funny at times.
2. Wings of Desire... Probably the only German film i totally adore. Hollywood remade it (Badly as usual) and called it City of Angels. A slow film at times, but immense in beauty and poetry and truly beautiful. It's even got cameos by Nick Cave and Peter Falk!
3. Crouching Tiger... criticized in its native China for being too "Hollywood" but we in the west never quite saw anything quite like this before. Not afraid to be sadly beautiful. Definitely better than Hero in retrospect.
4. Betty Blue... a verr erotic road movie from France. A tragic love story. And typically full of French passion in every sense. I stil can't get the theme tune out of my head. I totally blubbed at the end.
5. The Seven Samurai. A great film by Akira Kurosawa. I could easily have chosen any of his others here, such is the brilliance of this Japanese director.
6. Hard Boiled... gotta have a cops-and-triad-ultra-violent-mad-shootout-fest type film in here somewhere, and this is it.
7. The Motorcycle Diaries... aww it's just bee-yootiful!
8. Cinema Paradiso... a film about film! Set in an Italian town. It says so many thing about love. I blubbed at the ending to this, too!
9. Must have one of the Chinese Ghost movies in here, but which to choose? The beautiful and sad "Rouge" The hideously silly 'Mr Vampire'... or the equally hideously silly 'Spooky Encounters'? Or mebbe 'A Chinese Ghost Story'? Gah! They're all great... but as i like romance, i think Rouge just edges the others. Just.
10. The Three Colours Trilogy Red/White/Blue. Cheating slightly, here, but all three films are supertastic!
And on a final note: it might sound a tad patriotic, but my favourite film maker is still English... and called Mike Leigh. =}
S.x
Wow, so many to choose from! (Thanks Janey/xx for the Zatoichi suggestion!)
I should give myself prizes for overusing the word "Beautiful"
Hah!
S.
I don't think I would even be able to create a top ten list - there are just so many that I adore.
If you are looking for another excellent German movie, try 'Goodbye, Lenin!' by Wolfgang Becker. It is set at the time of the fall of the Berlin wall and is hilarious and tragic at the same time.
Then there is also the Iranian movie, 'Children of Heaven'. The plot simple, but it is just so charming, and the last scene is one of my favourites ever.
And 'Goya in Bordeaux' and 'Tango' by Carlos Saura. Very surreal, but hauntingly beautiful.
Ok, enough dreaming now. I have to get back to work.
Thanks Onan!
I was thinking that i'd never seen 'Goodbye Lenin' as i wrote that list... and now you've reminded me of some others that i wanted to see... Ace!
I'm also trying to remember an innuit film i saw the other year... hard to remember the orginal name, but i think it was translated as 'The Fast Runner' purdy cool. And i totally regret not having any space for 'Delicatessen', City of God' and a few hundred others from around the globe... *sigh* just not enough time!
Time for a bit of a laugh next, methinks.
S.x
I watch a lot of foreign films, and I have no problem with subtitles. Most of the films I watch are ultraviolent ones though. Watched The Eye last night, another great Asian horror film.
In my opinion, dubbing is a crime against the movie industry. I´d rather just watch than listening to that!
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