Are you willing to watch foreign films with subtitles?

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i_am_Lois

Member
Some foreign films are very well made & interesting. They can be ruined though, if dubbed with voices that sound ridiculous. I don't mind subtitles as long as I'm not expected to speed read. The film with subtitles I enjoyed most was Chinese movie called Raise the Red Lantern. On IMDb it's given a rating of 8.3.
 

Of course! I watch foreign films and the subtitles never bother me. Unless the background is such that sometimes you can't read them.

But sometimes I will turn the dubbed selection on, the voices can be a crack up.

I also love and watch silent movies.
 
I'm used to it from a fairly young age, as I used to go to Chinatown to watch the kung-fu movies.

In fact, sometimes the best part was the translations! :playful:

I'm not a big fan of Conan O'Brien, but he did a funny take-off on a popular Chinese soap opera - the funny stuff starts about 2 minutes in ...

Conan and Andy Dub "Pearl"
 
I watch a few on the Tele, some are worth the effort of paying the extra attention, some not. I've seen a few from the M.East and Brazil and the Scandanavian regions that were fascinating. Not into Asian ones so much, but one from, or set in Thailand or Cambodia or somewhere about village life was illuminating. So different to the West yet on a human level so very much the same.

I like them as a window on how the rest of the world really lives on the level we don't usually see. I like to see what's in the kitchen in Sweden or Cairo, bit of a voyeur? Don't care about the plots so much.

One from the M.East about an old hulk of a ship that was turned into a kind of hotel for the dispossessed by it's old skipper was a memorable one. It had no real plot that I could discern, other than the threat of the ship being broken up for scrap. It was otherwise just the day to day doings among a group of people trying to make a new life for themselves while living like rats in a leaky old ship. The skipper came across as a comparatively kindly man but also a ruthless one when crossed. Seemed to sum up life there pretty well to me.

Cinema Paradiso was a little gem from Italy. About a kid addicted to movies who eventually became a director of them. It focused on his childhood and magic of movies to a kid and the villagers he was raised among. It was a delight.

One from Nordic regions was among the most emotive movies I've ever seen. It was about a village on an island that was to be flooded by a new dam. It dealt with the trauma of the villagers whose families had lived there for umpteen generations.

One old lady used her last vestiges of energy to clean that ancient log house from top to bottom. It shone as it hadn't for a century. She put flowers in a vase on the old dining table, picked up her small suitcase, stood in the doorway looking back into her families home, smiled, nodded and turned to walk down to the ferry. Behind her the authorities put the house to the torch and it burned behind her. I still tear up at that scene. She gave the house the best send off she could. God I'm goin' soft. aaaagh.

Too much dialogue puts me off, I like the ones that don't need a lot best.
 
I don't mind watching subtitles at all and agree that foreign movies can be very good.
I agree 100% about Raise the Red Lantern. It really opened my eyes to the plight of women in a totally paternal hierarchical society.

Like Di, I also watch films these days for the background settings.
 
Love 'em! But, sometimes the subtitles can be difficult to read. It's best when they are boxed in yellow so it's easier to see.
 
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I didn't like foreign films much when I was younger, but now I like all kinds of movies. Foreign ones are particularly interesting because of the different culture.
 
I watched an exquisite Turkish film recently about a couple of village children, big brother and little sister, whose mother had died and who were being cared for by their maternal grandfather. Their father, nominally their guardian, wanted nothing to do with them since taking a new wife and the old man was very frail, having had a stroke.

The relationships in the film needed very little by way of dialogue; the love of the children for each other and for their father and grandfather was expressed in their eyes and gestures and the sadness of the little girl as her father passed her by as if she were a stranger was heart rending but she never uttered a word. You could almost read the grandfather's mind as he searched for ways to secure the children's future, knowing that he would not be able to raise them for much longer. In the end, the film had a very poignant climax, the like of which we never see in Hollywood productions.

It can be very worthwhile watching foreign films with subtitles.
 
Oh, there are marvellous foreign movies, I recently enjoyed some by a German-Turkish filmmaker called Fatih Akin - I think the dubbing takes away a lot of the atmosphere and intention of the movie. So, unless you speak the language, subtitles are the only way to go. Although it's true that sometimes it's all too fast, especially with the French movies, they're a country of fast-talkers;)
 
Love foreign films and subtitles no problem - I don't even realize I'm reading them. Lots of good stuff on Netflix.
 
Most foreign films are so much more interesting than the stuff Hollywood keeps regurgitating, I actually seek them out on On Demand, Netflix, and etc.
 
I've seen a lot of great subtitled films. Two that come to mind are a Danish one called 'Babette's Feast' and a German one 'Das Boot'. We've seen a lot of them on Netflix.

I refuse to watch those which are dubbed.
 

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