MovieChat Forums > Hors de prix (2008) Discussion > poor subtitles

poor subtitles

posted 16 years ago by gregcarman
8 replies | jump to latest

Non French speakers should be aware that the subtitles, at least for the print shown in Australia, constantly missed the point.

Like when she comes into the bar and sets a casual tone by saying "Soir" (short for "Bonsoir"), even clipping the rolling "r", which should have been subtitled "Evenin'" but instead got the formal "Good Evening" (a literal translation of "Bonsoir"), totally inconsistent with her character!

(And clipping the final "r" also made it into a pun -- maybe unintended -- on "Soit", "Let it be so!", but subtitling that one is beyond me!!)

[–] jjchang 16 years ago

If that's the biggest fault you can find in its subtitles, then I'd say its subtitles are extremely good.

[–] DismembersOnly 16 years ago

Quel pedant!

[–] 16 years ago

[deleted]

[–] claudecat 16 years ago

interesting! I noticed that she swallowed a lot of words, but I don't know French well enough to know exactly what that says about her character--did she have sort of a low-class manner of speaking, or was it high-class slangy?

[–] twester 16 years ago

I don't speak much French, but I do sometimes watch movies subtitled in Dutch (a language with which I'm reasonably proficient). I regularly see things that are translated a little off. Or I'll catch a slang phrase that was translated into English literally, but that wasn't nearly what was actually said.

I get what you're saying, though. It's hard to convey the nuances of complex language in translation. I'm always suspicious of the subtitles of French films because the French experiment as much with their language as we Anglophones do.

I liked this movie, but it didn't bowl me over. That probably had much to do with the missing subtlety of language due to my poor skills with French.

[–] hiccough 16 years ago

There were a few words I had to strain to read. I thought subtitles had graduated to an orange-yellow. I guess not.

[–] PlatinumScreen 13 years ago

i loved the movie despite missing half the dialogue due to light yellow subtitles against light-colored backgrounds. it's almost as if the movie's powers-that-be didn't watch it to see if the words could be read.

or maybe i could learn french and avoid the whole issue. :)

"....a lady always knows when to leave."
Fried Green Tomatoes

[–] C_h_r_i_s_t_o_p_h_e_r 9 years ago

lol if this is the biggest problem you found with the subtitles then I'd be very happy. Usually when I'm watching imported films that aren't available I'm stuck with the worst translations ever. Sometimes even forced with machine translated subs for the very early releases that I'm desperate to see. On a note similar to this Xavier Dolan said he did his own subtitles for his film Mommy because he was worried the slang and other stuff would not be translated properly. That's pretty cool and maybe more director's should do this or hire better translators :)