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Friday, June 04, 2004

I've had several foreign releases out from Netflix recently. One of them was Man with the Movie Camera made in the USSR in 1929. Being a silent film and a sort of Soviet Koyaanisqatsi, there were only a few placards at the beginning of the film that needed subtitling. Well and good.

After that came Solaris, the 1972 Russain-language version, and a movie definitely for those who thought the pace of Kubrick's 2001 was far too frenetic. Slavic languages generally don't seem to translate comfortably into English, whether it's a movie, a book, or an opera - no matter how good the translation, there are always passages that are either stilted or just leave you saying "whunh?" For example, in Solaris, in the middle of an argument Kris Kelvin says "When you don't have any arms or legs, call us and we'll come empty your chamberpot." (Knowing the context doesn't help.)

Right now I have disk one of the Cowboy Bebop series out. I've been itching to see these in Japanese with subtitles, as opposed to the English-dubbed version on the Cartoon Network. Oddly, one of the characters' tradmark phrases is rendered as "Shucks howdy!" in the dubbed version, when in the subtitled version he's very clearly saying "Amigo!" Surely the average English-speaking viewer could handle that much Spanish!

...Heading off to Mexico this weekend to do some diving... in warm water... with decent visibility...

2 comments

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2 Comments:

Carrie and I watched some Cowboy Bebop via the Mesa Library, but didn't care for it. The manga is fine. Is the non-Americanized cartoon much different?

-Anonymous SunaNezumi

By Anonymous Anonymous, at 6:45 AM  

The dialog is tighter, and the acting is better, but so far I haven't seen any major divergences, like Ed is Spike's father.

By Blogger Nancy, at 3:58 PM  

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