(Paris) “So why is the film subtitled? » The question came from a spectator, at the end of the screening of Humanist vampire seeking consenting suicide by Ariane Louis-Seize, previewed last Friday at the UGC Ciné Cité Les Halles cinema in Paris.
I smiled at this “suddenly”, a Franco-French language tic that we didn’t notice 20 years ago, before realizing that the viewer was fooling us. He was a Quebecer living in Paris who wondered why films made in the “Belle Province” are subtitled in France while those from Senegal, for example, are not.
We speak the same language, he said in substance, being surprised that The successor by Frenchman Xavier Legrand, currently showing in France, is not subtitled even though it is also set in Quebec and stars Marc-André Grondin, without a French accent for three-quarters of the film. Why double standards?
On stage, in front of this large packed room of some 500 spectators, Ariane Louis-Seize was visibly bored. This decision was not her responsibility, she clarified, before her distributor came to her aid to justify the subtitles.
The decision was not taken lightly, according to the distributor, but some theater operators did not understand the trailer and preferred subtitles. In test screenings, French spectators were unable to understand around ten sentences from the film. This was particularly the case for the public of very French Paris International Fantastic Film Festival, where Humanist vampire seeking consenting suicide won the best film award in December. It was therefore decided to subtitle the entire work rather than certain particular scenes.
“ Humanist vampire seeking consenting suicide works thanks to its constant humor (Quebec vocabulary necessarily plays a role in this) which is charged with melancholy at the most appropriate moments. And thanks to its main actress, the formidable Sara Montpetit, discovered in Falcon Lake by Charlotte Le Bon,” wrote the magazine First the day before the release of Ariane Louis-Seize’s film, Wednesday.
It turns out that in Falcon Lake, the dialogues of the Quebec actors were subtitled in France, but not those of the (rare) French actors. As if they were, yes, distinct languages. It was Sara Montpetit herself who recalled this paradox after the Paris premiere.
The vocabulary of Humanist vampire seeking consenting suicidethe words and expressions chosen by Ariane Louis-Seize and her co-writer Christine Doyon are indeed, as pointed out First, essential to the comic effect and irresistible rhythm of this learning story very well received by French critics. The Allociné site has listed around twenty reviews, from World At FigaroPassing by Release And Teleramafor an average rating of three and a half stars.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY H264
Image taken from Humanist vampire seeking consenting suicide
I understand that the small French distributor of this Quebec comedy, Wayna Pitch, cannot afford to alienate part of its audience because of subtitles. However, we cannot accuse the distributor of Noémie says yes and Diver not to support Quebec cinema. But we would like to remind French spectators that it is not necessary to understand every word of a scenario to grasp the essentials.
When I see a film that features young people from the Parisian suburbs or old people from Marseille, I miss parts of it too, obviously. I wouldn’t want subtitles though. Reluctantly, the subtitles encourage me to read rather than listen. Even though I understand the language.
What struck me, in the French-French subtitles of Humanist vampire seeking consenting suicide, that’s how useless they are for the most part. Most of the dialogues are transcribed verbatim. Otherwise, we fuss over correcting the language.
We forget that this comedy features Quebec teenagers speaking a vernacular language full of layers and anglicisms, not a theater troupe from the Henri-IV high school reciting Racine.
When the character of Paul (Félix-Antoine Bénard) says that he is going to “take a chance”, the subtitles specify instead that he is going to “take the risk”. When he says he “missed” something, we write that he “missed” it. But when he is called “cellar”, we translate it as “naze” rather than “boloss”, more popular among French teenagers.
I would be curious to know what the cinema operators did not understand in the trailer for Humanist vampire. The subtitles and dialogue are identical, except for a single sentence. The school principal (Micheline Bernard) asks Paul and his mother (Madeleine Péloquin): “What tells me that next time, it won’t be a friend he’s going to attack? “. The subtitles translate to: “What if next time he attacks a friend? » White bonnet, white bonnet.
What they didn’t understand, obviously, was our accent. Like Ariane Louis-Seize, when a spectator asked her if the music of her film had been inspired by Stranger Thingspronounced with a strong Parisian accent transforms the “th” into “s” and Things in Sings. So, I told myself that it could have been much worse. The film could have been dubbed…