by Jyoti Hariharan

Created on: March 17, 2008

First of all, when does an average film buff, actually see a foreign language film? Obviously when you have heard rave reviews of the film, it's controversial, or has won accolades and awards. You don't pick up a foreign language film when you just want to be purely entertained after a day of hard work.

So when you are already making this effort to see this film , so you too can discuss it at the water cooler in office or be one among the crowd, you do want to understand the film with its various aspects, which include, acting, cinematography(if it has got an award for that), the sets, etc... Besides, if it's a very serious film, where most of the absorption involves dialogues and subtle expressions from the actors, you really want to see this film and understand it well.

But can subtitles allow you that leeway? I think not, most often with subtitles which skip the scene faster than you can read it, make it sometimes difficult to actually concentrate on anything else about the movie. Many times I find myself competing with myself to finish reading the long lines before it goes off the screen, and with such passion that I stop concentrating on the film and play this game more interestingly.

There are times when I watch a film, with subtitles , and I can understand both languages, I still find myself reading the subtitles, again playing the game mentioned above, comment on how bad or poor the subtitles are, how a better word could have been used, that could have explained what was being said better. All in all, subtitles are a disturbance and don't let you concentrate while you are watching the movie.

Dubbing on the other hand, helps you look at all aspects of the movie, you can watch the actor's faces, their expressions, the scenery etc... without having compromised on dialogues. It helps you watch the movie, being more relaxed and imbibe what is on screen. Yes at times, poor lip sync does get to you, but that is a result of two contrasting languages and you have to live with it.

Most often subtitles misconstrue the meaning of the dialogue, just to fit the right words within the existing frame that you lose out the actual meaning, whereas in dubbing you have the option of playing around with the dialogues across the frames to imply the right meaning and context.

Yes, meanings can be twisted in dubbing as well but that is a result of poor translation skills, unlike subtitling which sets a limit on the number of words that you can use, to fit within that frame.

And the bottom line is: we all want to SEE a film not READ one.

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