Lost in Translation

Posted on Sunday, May 03, 2009 at 11:37 pm

Out of nowhere, my sister and I decided to catch a movie at the theater today- something both of us have hardly done since moving here. We went for 17 Again, since we wanted a light movie where we could just walk in, get a few laughs, and walk out without having to overwork our brains. In that aspect, the movie did a fine job at fulfilling its purpose. I did, however, walk out of the theater feeling a bit disjointed and remembering why I sometimes don’t enjoy going to the movies in Taiwan.

  1. If you’ve ever watched a movie where you could understand the spoken language but the rest of the audience is relying on the subtitles (especially comedy movies), then you may know where I’m coming from. In short, if you’re lucky, then you get to laugh several beats after everyone else has finished laughing because either the timing of the subs are off or they’re reading it much faster than the actual spoken dialogue. The worst thing that could happen there is you end up looking like a slow idiot who caught onto the joke a bit late. Now, if you’re unlucky, everyone will still be laughing when the actual spoken dialogue is taking place, which then causes you to miss the whole damn thing because you can’t hear what’s being said over the laughter. Frustrations all over, I tell you.
  2. On a whole different note regarding laughter issues, here’s something that’s bound to happen when I watch a movie in a theater here. Nothing funny is happening on the screen, but the entire audience is laughing. A higher WTF factor that occurs occasionally is laughter all around when something kinda depressing is happening. And then when something that’s actually funny finally comes up, I’m the only one laughing (along with any non-local friend I may be watching said movie with). I don’t know how many times I’ve heard someone whisper, “What is she laughing about?” and how many times I’ve given myself wrinkles by scrunching up my face and wondering, “What the hell are they laughing at?!”
  3. I suppose this part doesn’t just cover Taiwan, but I really wish parents would stop bringing their kids to totally inappropriate movies. It’s annoying, wrong, bad for the kids, and… well, inappropriate. While watching 17 Again, I started noticing that there were kids talking, giggling, and whining throughout the movie, which is irritating in itself… but why are they even there? These kids are probably 6-8 years old max, and while the movie may not have explicit bits, it’s still PG-13. Seriously, I don’t care if you really want to watch a movie but can’t because you have kids. Find someone to babysit your kids or do whatever else you need to do, but for God’s sake, don’t bring them into the theater with you just so you can fulfill your own selfish desires to watch a movie that your kids have no business watching!

Of course, watching a movie on the opening weekend probably didn’t help. More people usually ends up making the aforementioned issues all the more apparent. Nevertheless, I left the theater today thinking yet again about how much stuff gets lost in translation. Sometimes, if it’s bad enough, I can’t help but wonder if they’re even watching the same movie I am. And it makes me wonder how much of the movie they’ve missed without realizing.

My ability to read Chinese isn’t all that great, so I can’t read a lot of the subtitles. But sometimes, when I do catch the subtitles, I find myself thinking, “What? That’s totally not it.” That’s not to say the subs are completely off- it’s just that sometimes, it’s not what it really means. Other times, it’s something cultural, like a joke that you wouldn’t really get unless you’re familiar with the Western culture, an idiom that doesn’t get translated right or at all, an innuendo that doesn’t come across, etc. It makes me wonder how much I’ve missed in all the foreign films I’ve watched in the past.

Sorted under: In My Shoes | Just Thinking
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Welcome. Graychalk.com is a personal blog of Téa and mainly an attempt to gather all the misplaced pieces in her life.

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