Monday, February 12, 2007

Yes, this is the name of a movie. It was a Spanish film screened in the Arts House. Well, think again. We thought it was a Spanish film with English subtitles. Lo and behold, it is an English film with Spanish subtitles ... Yeah, I looked carefully at the mouths of the actors, and they were speaking English ... it feels a little strange, watching a film with foreign subtitles, like I was watching it in a foreign country. Fortunately the English spoken was rather comprehensibly, so that was alright. I don't remember much about the movie, it was a romantic comedy, and fairly entertaining, thats it.

For those of you mere mortals, just a little study of film screenings in Singapore. All Non-English films need to be subtitled in English. This is a fact that doesn't need much debate. The problem arises from the origins of the subtitling. In my many years of film-going, I have observed that films from the West, had seldom had poor translation; it is the films from the far east, such as China, Hong Kong, SEA, etc, that produces English translation, that, well, enhances the enjoyment of watching a film, many many folds. On the one hand, native translators have a better understanding of the local dialogue. Unfortunately, these translators sometimes don't have a decent command of the English language. Hence, we, the audience, are often the ones who lose out. Even really serious scenes can be rendered really funny, in the hands of a poor translator.

Oh, I have another gripe. We have many films from foreign countries that come in their original tongues, hence the need for (good) subtitling. Dubbed films have become rare. However, Cantonese films from Hong Kong are still dubbed in Mandarin when they come here. I wonder why such films cannot be left alone in their own devices, while others can. What is (still) so wrong about listening to Cantonese in these times? If there are native films from other parts of China, will those be dubbed, instead of subtitled, as well? I hope MDA review this outdated policy as well.

♥ 9:37 pm