film OTWO
Audery Tatou in Delicacy
W
e, as native English speakers in Ireland, are in a privileged position. Not only are we part of a diverse multinational economic community in which there is a free trans-cultural exchange of ideas, but our native language (albeit our official second language) is the dominant mode of communication in which those ideas are exchanged. Although it is not the language with the most speakers worldwide, English is now used as a ‘lingua franca’ in the global linguistic system, and current globalisation processes are reaffirming its position in the technology industries, in the flow of scientific knowledge, and especially in the global consumption of popular culture. Therefore, when it comes to international cinema, our unique position means we have open access to films that are not in our native tongue, but mass audiences always ditch the original, subtitled version in favour of the filtered Hollywood remake because they have bigger marketing campaigns; we are more familiar with the actors having seen them in magazines and on the internet, and, most pertinently, the dialogue is in English. But why do native Englishspeaking audiences have such an aversion to subtitles? The usual complaints about having to “read a film” and how subtitles break the illusion are invalid and are a demonstration of native English-speaking audiences’ complete unwillingness to engage in any way with a foreign language film, in much the same way we travel to a foreign country having not bothered to learn even a few words of the native language and then are frustrated when no one understands us speaking English a bit louder and slower. Subtitles are something that don’t seem to bother other cultures. For example, in China films often have two sets of subtitles, usually Mandarin
In the final film feature of the year, Dermot O’Rourke casts a critical eye over the relationship between Englishspeaking languages and foreign-language films
Lost in Translation
and Cantonese, for their foreign language films, and at international film festivals, such as Cannes, films are often projected with more than one set of subtitles to cater for the international audiences. Native English-speaking audiences are subtitle-phobic to the point of ignorance and it has, in recent times, allowed for the emergence of the needlessly large market of Hollywood remakes of foreign language films. Hollywood capitalises on the phenomenon by recycling stories from successful foreign language films – which by virtue of being successful abroad, have proven track records in attracting an audience – supplying them with a healthy budget, sticking in English speaking actors and generally giving the whole thing a sterile gloss. Take 2010’s horror film Let Me In, for example, a completely redundant remake of Tomas Alfredson’s brilliant 2008 Swedish film Let the Right One In. Let Me In relocated the story from the chilling isolation of
Lina Leandersson in Let the Right One In
Stockholm’s suburbs in the 1980s to for-shot remake of his masterpiece modern-day New Mexico. In solely Funny Games, albeit with it set in monetary terms, Let Me In was more America, with English-speaking acsuccessful and attracted a larger au- tors that cost three times what the dience than its far superior Swed- original did. Even recently, Icelanish counterpart. With its budget of dic director Blatasar Kormákur’s twenty million dollars (five times thriller Contraband starring Mark that of Let the Right One In) it man- Wahlberg is, in fact, a remake of a aged to take approximately eleven film called Reykjavík-Rotterdam in million dollars more than the origi- which Kormákur played the leading nal did at the box office. However, it role. is important to note that despite its The primary problem with Holsmaller budget and distribution Let lywood remaking foreign language the Right One In made a higher gross films is that the process is not just profit than Let Me In, which only a simple task of translating the diajust about broke even. logue and replanting the story in Moreover, the culture of remak- America. There are underlying culing foreign language films has led tural, language, and locality issues to foreign directors remaking their specific to its origin that means no own films for English-speaking au- film can just be directly extracted diences. Japanese director Takashi without fundamentally altering the Shimizu remade his 2002 horror core elements that made the film film Ju-on as The Grudge in 2004, great, and attracted a remake, in the starring Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s first place. Sarah Michelle Gellar and enjoyAmongst all this, there is a cening enormous success in the US tral question that still remains: in a and Europe. Even more pointlessly, time of unprecedented globalisation Michael Haneke brought out a shot- and independent international productions in film, what really constitutes a “foreign film”? Is Danny Boyle’s 2008 film Slumdog Millionaire, for example, with its setting, cast, and subject matter, an Indian film, or with its British director, financers, and (predominantly) English dialogue, a British film? Or is Irish-directed, Irish-cast, Belgianbased, English-financed thriller In Bruges an Irish film? It does appear that in the English-speaking West, certainly, that a film is deemed “foreign” not by the virtue of what it looks like, but what it sounds like. Yet what native English-speaking audiences must realise is that the real beauty of this medium is the universality of the language of cinema, and as such, that any really great film can be simply enjoyed by any audience, and in any language. 15