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Mon 6 Dec, 2004 06:48 am
Central do Brasil is a film I have been meaning to see for some time, as its Oscar chances against La Vita e Bella were big news in Brazil, enough to make Fernanda Montenegro a household name (Brazilians pedestal their compatriots who succeed in the "exterior").
I haven't been watching movies in ages but recently got Netflix and decided to catch up on older films I want to see.
I think the campy La Vita e Bella was right to win over this film, but wish they could have been released in separate years.
Anywho, to the point:
The subtitles were horrible. Subtitles have bothered me ever since I worked as a linguist, they are usually cheap jobs that marr the art of film through a lack of the art of translation.
If you watched this and don't understand Portuguese please understand that the subtitles didn't do it justice.
Another comment: Roger Ebert says it's a film where we see "modern Brazil".
He's smoking crack, it goes out of its way to be backwater and primitive.
Anywho, if you haven't seen it check it out, it's an interesting film.
Lol - loved the film - as I recall it was SET in the backwaters...so why....???
Subtitles - you speak sooth - never trusted them since I was able to understand German well enough - a loooong time ago - to see how bad the translations were...
And - since I saw Randy Newman sing in France - with French subtitles - and "sweet watermelon and the buckwheat cake" translated as some damn fruit and "profiteroles"!!!
The subtitles missed all the idiomatic cultural richness and the few times where a perfect idiomatic pair could be found the translators went with some stupid generic translation.
The settings were so "backwater" that it was hard for a person (me) who has lived all over Brazil to recognize.
I supect it is becauseit might have been intended to be exotic for even the domestic Brazilian audience and not a snapshot of Brazil to outsiders.
But even Rio is hard to recognize.
Ebert was really smoking crack.
Ebert was really smoking crack.
!!!!!!!
Well, I wouldn't know real hinterland Brazil from Adam, but it was a great film. Even Rio, eh?
I don't recall much of the city stuff...
I saw that movie ... I know I did. I dont recall much about it - coupla years back, right?
Saw La Vita e Bella too - liked it. Nicely over the top and yet touching.
To my shame I have yet to see it, specially because I've been meaning to do so ever since it came out. This is certainly a welcomed reminder; I've only heard good things about this film.
Good point taken about the La Vitta e Bella and Central do Brasil unfortunately coming out in the same year. But watching Benigni's reaction when winning the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film was somewhat worth the disappointment. And to my knowledge and recognition, Fernanda Montenegro has always been a household name in Brazil... Being nominated for an Oscar of Best Actress was merely a triumphal achievement, nonetheless.
superjuly wrote:But watching Benigni's reaction when winning the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film was somewhat worth the disappointment.
Very true.
Quote:And to my knowledge and recognition, Fernanda Montenegro has always been a household name in Brazil... Being nominated for an Oscar of Best Actress was merely a triumphal achievement, nonetheless.
She was, but the mere Oscar chance made it a matter of patriotism, not just a decent actress.
In Brazil, that makes icons out of anyone (see Guga, a decent player in a sport Brazilians care nothing about or Rodrigo Pessoa for a sport that nobody cares about).
When a Brazilian gets any recognition outside of Brazil, they don their small countery syndrome and go nuts.
Central do Brasil is a very good film, IMO. An eerie sort of "road movie" with real defective, but not caricaturesque, human beings in extreme situations. The character played by Fernanda Montenegro is particularly well defined.
On the other two asides.
American critics usually cannot be taken seriously when they write about foreign films, specially films from less developed countries. They often only prove their unavoidable cultural ethnocentrism and an ignorance of homeric proportions ("homeric" being a word derived from Homer Simpson).
I prefer a film with subtitles than a dubbed film. Dubbing takes away an esencial part of the acting. Of course, subtitles have to be at least decent. For "Central Station" there was no problem, since the similitude of Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese. I have almost never found a bad subtitling of English spoken films (though some are bright, and some only passable), but have a couple of times been amazed at the stupidities some fake translator of Italian put on the screen (on B movies, gratefully), so I understand the dangers.
Ha! A new "Homeric"!
Love it.
I was going to post in a similar vein as Fbaezer - as horrible as subtitles often are, I will not watch a dubbed film at all, it is too painful. I rented Central Station but got busy and took it back without watching it; I mean to see it sometime. On Benigni, I haven't see La Vita e' Bella, but have seen Johnny Stecchino, which I remember liking at the time.
I just looked up Benigni's filmography and now am confused re Johnny Stecchino, so ... never mind. (I remember a train station, I think, thus something in common with Central Station..)
I strongly agree with the dubbed thing.
fbaezer wrote:Central do Brasil is a very good film, IMO. An eerie sort of "road movie" with real defective, but not caricaturesque, human beings in extreme situations. The character played by Fernanda Montenegro is particularly well defined.
Indeed. With all the hype in Brasil about the possible Oscar win the TV stations forgot to divulge much about the film (and many Brazilians cheering for the Oscar neglected to see it).
So I was udner the mistakenimpression that it was mainly about the letter writing gig Dora has. But that was a short-lived part of the film (too much so by my estimation, as that was a medium on which some very rich cultural tapestry could have been woven.
Quote:I prefer a film with subtitles than a dubbed film. Dubbing takes away an esencial part of the acting.
Amen! I'd rather not understand and see the acting than watch it dubbed.
But I find subtitles very distracting and usually spend most of my time in linguistic gymnastics no matter how hard I try to ignore them (I put paper over the bottomof the screen sometimes).
Craven de Kere wrote:
But I find subtitles very distracting and usually spend most of my time in linguistic gymnastics no matter how hard I try to ignore them (I put paper over the bottomof the screen sometimes).
Ahhh ! I haven't tried that yet. Maybe I should. It is most annoying when I get distracted by a very badly translated line. They seem to catch my attention so quickly!
I don't know that many languages, have glimmers in a few; in those I can see the translation is abysmal. I can also see it in those I don't understand at all, such as Japanese. Very nearly useless subititles (what?), hugely distracting.
So listen, someone like Craven could make zillions of bucks, perhaps, resubtitling hundreds of wonderful films, each foreign to someone else from somewhere else.
I Brazil I thought of marching down to the main dubbing/subtitling firms and showing them how to do it.
Thing is, the studios and distributors don't care. They pay poorly for the job but still make their money.
What subtitling needs is a native from each language.
Walter Salles speaks English, but not well enough to notice the hack job done to his film.
Yah, but you could coordinate it, get new editions made, that sell for more. Go to whatsisface... (wracking brain.. Weinstein? Miramax?)
Not all in the LA basin are dolts.
Or, hey, your own company.
And there would be some level of cultural interest if smaller than mass audience, perhaps especially if they were higher priced (especially, sadly).
I think it is a good idea, if a slow starter.
Let's just say that for subtitles, there is a crying need for quality translation. (Where are Tim Parks, William Weaver, re ital translations?
Well, now they are busy with their own books.)
It was a shame that "Central Station" received such a poor translation in its sub-titles. I've never been bothered much by having to read them as an alternative to horrible dubbing. "Das Boot" is probably the best dubbed film and I'd still rather see the sub-titled version. A recent showing of "Fellini's Roma" on VOOM satellite inadvertantly was both dubbed and sub-titled and the discrepancies were really disconcerting, some outright howlingly funny. Why would translaters and/or the directors they work with (or possibly, the producers, a sad mistake) literally rewrite the script? Doesn't shake. Certainly wish I could speak Portuguese and hear the dialogue in "Central Station" as Craven has experienced it. I don't believe the movie purports to be an accurate depiction of street life in Brazil -- it's fictional. I don't think I'd be able to accurately depict the lives of the inhabitants of Watts, Ca. but many have tried.
You should write a script of life in Rio or some other city in Brazil, Craven. Never can tell.
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