Monday, March 23, 2009

LOST IN TRANSLATION

I live in Kentucky where few non-Hollywood movies ever play, so needless to say, I missed the opportunity to see the Swedish film Let the Right One In on the big screen. Instead, I read online reviews and anxiously awaited the DVD release. Let the Right One In quickly became one of my favorite movies with three viewings so far.

Let the Right One In is about a little boy named Oskar, who finds a friend in Eli, the strange girl next door who turns out to be a vampire.

Icons of Fright now informs us the subtitles on the DVD have been changed from the theatrical release, cutting out the dark humor and dumbing it down for American audiences (I've included a sample below but it's well worth the click to Icons of Fright for more examples). Screen captures show the two different subtitles and it does make quite a difference.

This is nothing new. Foreign films often have lines changed or slightly altered in subtitles and dubbing. Anyone who frequently watches foreign movies can avow to this fact. Asian films often even have misspellings in the subtitles.

It's frustrating to know you're not getting the movie that was intended, especially such a good film like this. Maybe one day a corrected version of the DVD will be released. Til then, guess I need to learn to speak Swedish.


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