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'You Can See the Photos Are Just Stuck On'

posted 15 years ago by torential
1 reply | jump to latest

Much has been made of the subtitles in this movie, of how only the black South Africans' and the alien South Africans' lines are subtitled. As far as I can tell, this line is the only one delivered by a white South African that is subtitled; the soldier is speaking a language that I don't recognize, but it's not English.

Does anyone understand the language and words the soldier is speaking? If so, is the subtitle translated accurately? Any significance as to why Blomkamp chose this line to be spoken by a white South African in a language other than English? I'm likely reading more into this than is necessary, but it puzzles me as to why he broke away from his directorial "rule" he had been using for this one line.

[–] bobbetybob-1 15 years ago

He's speaking to an alien and this is meant to be set what, less than a year after they invade maybe, so I think he could be speaking in the alien language, as it's more likely they would learn the alien language before the aliens would learn ours.