MovieChat Forums > Bu neng mei you ni (2009) Discussion > Significance of Spanish Title

Significance of Spanish Title


Saw this film last night at the Edinburgh Film Festival and was wondering if anyone knows why the title is in Spanish? I don't know much about Taiwanese cultural history, so not sure if this is an obvious question or not.

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There are couple reasons why the director picked the Spanish title, according to the interview with the director on the official website.

http://atomcinema.pixnet.net/blog/post/25448824

1) The title should capture the attitude of the film and the English title sounds too much like a song title.

2) English is the international language and more films are named in English than any other language due to the popularity of Hollywood films.

In this film, director purposely used the language as a tool to signify the class hierarchy in Taiwan. The father always talks to government officials in Mandarin, to boss in Taiwanese and to his friend in Hakka. However, the dialog between the father and the daughter is always in Mandarin because he wants her to be educated and one day becomes upper class.

So, the director picked a common phrase in South America as the film title.

3) More people are paying attention to the film because it doesn't have English title.

If you can read Chinese, there are also other answers to frequently asked questions such as "why is the film shot in black and white instead of color?" on the official website.

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Thanks for that info. Good to know about the different languages used.

I really hope this film gets the academy nomination for foreign pic.

That last scene with the boat pulling up and them staring at each other, together with score, is one of the greatest scenes in recent memory.

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Thanks kaje222, it helps a lot!

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