When deciding to watch The Orphanage, I based my experience off the one I had with Pan's Labyrinth and was really excited about the movie. Again I stayed interested the entire time and definitely felt allot of suspense.
I don't think I would have ever chosen to watch either of these Spanish movies if they had not been horror films. I would never sit through a Spanish love story or action movie. I was wondering if ya'll felt the same way about foreign films and if you felt that it says something about the ability of the genre to draw in viewers.
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I definitely feel the same way...I don't think a love story has enough pull to keep an audience interested if it's a foreign film. There's something about horror which is kind of universal - different cultures have their own ideas about what constitutes a love story, or an action movie, but making people scream is pretty across the board. There's something about horror and suspense that translates well into any culture, I think.
ReplyDeleteIn high school, I watched a lot of animated films in Spanish (The Lion King, Finding Nemo, etc). Though this was an interesting experience, I cannot say that I would watch an animated foreign film. It was amusing, however, to hear familiar tunes like "I Just Can't Wait to Be King" in Spanish. I agree that horror translates across cultures better.
ReplyDeleteI don't know. I think it's something that really depends on the story. The Spanish in Pan's Labyrinth, for example seems like such an integral part of the story or of the ambiance of it, at least, that I can't imagine it in English. However, I could say the same thing for a film like Amelie, which is about as far from horror as you can get. It wouldn't be the same and it would definitely lack...I don't know...whimsy if it wasn't in French. Maybe that's just me, though.
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ReplyDeleteI see it less as a language thing and more as a culture thing. That is, for me it's less about being able to imagine the story being told in English and more about being able to understand the concept of the story in the context of our culture. Horror translates better across the foreign film barrier, to me, because the ideas of horror in our culture and the culture of Spain, say, or Russia, or wherever are more similar than the ideas of comedy or romance. I'd argue that for that reason, movies like Amelie are less accessible to people in our culture, because they involve a sense of humor or whimsy that doesn't quite match up with ours. I'm not saying it's impossible, or that nobody that isn't French wouldn't be able to enjoy Amelie, 'cause that's obviously not true. I'm just saying it is less accessible because humor is an idea that translates less readily across cultures. Yay for Audrey Tautou movies, though.
ReplyDeleteI was a little unsure about the whole Spanish-language barrier at first, since I'm a chronic multi-tasker, which wouldn't go well with actually having to watch the TV screen to understand the dialogue. However, it was so engaging, I couldn't imagine taking my eyes off the screen (except when the hammers and such came out). I didn't notice the language until I would look away from the screen and not be able to understand what was being said. I watched "Twister" in Spanish, since my fiance majored in Spanish, but it did not have subtitles. Even that was interesting, since there was so much action.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree that the horror movie bridges the language barrier better. Aside from the language, the The Orphanage really seemed like it could have been set in America as well.
ReplyDeleteExactly. The elements that make the Orphanage scary are just as scary regardless of the fact that it is a Spanish film, or that it is in the Spanish language.
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