Once Upon a Time, Foreign Films were a Parasite.
So much, as translating a laugh is enough to remove the essence of an entire piece of foreign media.
Moving to a new country, a new culture, exposes you to many things. One of these, is a new set of marketing methods, brand campaigns and most importantly, a different way of media consumption. Take for example Peru, my country of origin. It has an unsurprising Spanish-based media industry and whilst their aim is to hit every point of populous contact, there is still a massive influence coming from the Anglo-sphere. Evidence of the aforementioned can be seen in efforts such as English subtitled films being shown at the Cinema. To be completely honest, I find it extraordinary how leading continental chains are willing to lose out on clear profitable opportunities. Subtitled screenings can be found most of the time far from full, while in contrast, the same film translated in Spanish can demand for individual cinemas to dedicated their entire screens to a single movie.
What on earth could drive these Cinema franchises to screen subtitled films if not for the money? Why is keeping the language of origin relevant to the piece if most of the audience is oblivious to it? and most importantly, Why is there a risk been taken when that language, that word, is not your own?
May 2nd of 2017, enter La Casa de Papel (Money Heist). A Spanish television heist crime drama series originally aired in Spain through network Antena 3. This series received critical acclaim for it’s sophisticated plot, interpersonal dramas, direction and for trying to innovate Spanish television. Therefore, Netflix acquired the global streaming rights in late 2017, re-cut the series into 22 shorter episodes and released them worldwide by the 20th of December of that same year. As a potential Spanish consumer I responded positively to La Casa de Papel, and it quickly became one of my favorites shows of the past few years.
“The multilevel, the conscious and the unconscious, is natural when I write scripts, when I come up with ideas and stories.”
— Boon Joon-Ho
Upon moving to the UK in late 2018, I was eager to share my new found interest with my new friends. To my surprise, most of them had seen the series under the name of Money Heist. Entering conversation to decipher what has been the response to the series, I found out there was a relationship between those which watched the series in it’s original intended language and those who watched it in translated English.
The selection of people that felt any sort of relevant attraction to the group of characters, were those that witness their dialogues as spoken by the actors themselves. The ability to understand the interactions as close to reality as possible is what made these members of audience not only get a better understanding of the behaviors and personality of each of the characters, but also able to respect the initial vision set by production. Needless to say, these audiences members didn’t know Spanish and were only left to read the subtitles as their only form of dialectic information.
On the other hand, those who watched the series translated in English never really got engaged with the characters themselves, and not to mention the plot. Words like ‘unappealing’ or ‘basic’ were used to describe such apparent mediocrity. To try and understand their perspective I decided to re-watch the series in it’s entirety but this time translated.
That’s when it hit me. When ‘Bella Ciao’ started playing, I knew what had been affecting the reception of the translated version. I finally knew what had La Casa de Papel had been missing English all along, and it was all centered around the title. La Casa de Papel in Spanish is not Money Heist. It is not an attempt on translation and is neither an interpretation of the latter. La Casa de Papel or ‘The House of Paper’ is a metaphor for something really intricate but fragile. This is an overarching theme of the series that is completely lost in the translation.
In addition to this, other aspects of the series are lost. For instance, the title sequence of the show features a paper model of the Royal Mint of Spain in Madrid, the setting of the heist. What at first glance just seems like an aesthetic decision, upon linking it to the untranslated title, becomes a much bigger reference as to idea of a complex plan capable of being dismantled by insignificant variables. As a consequence, audience members never feel the sense of tension as much as those who watch in Spanish. This emotion is not implicated from the start, resulting in the plot seemingly dull and one-dimensional.
La Casa de Papel doesn’t try particularly new things, however it perfects the main pillars of the heist crime genre. Without those small details lost in translation, which may not look as much but really stack one on top of the other, the series just ends up looking like one of the rest. Sometimes reading subtitles or simply going inside an external culture through language is an effort worth making. Just because one may think they won’t understand it, doesn’t mean that listening it in your language will make it better.
