Understanding Film and the Role of Translation

2020/08/28

The first Japanese film I saw in a theater was "The Eel" (1997), directed by Shohei Imamura and starring Koji Yakusho, which won the Palme d'Or at Cannes. Even reading the Spanish subtitles for the few lines of dialogue, I understood almost nothing. While it is true that I was young and lacked education and life experience, I remember struggling to interpret the actions of characters from a different culture, even if the story had universal elements. In such a situation, empathy was out of the question.

In the South Korean film "Parasite," which won the Academy Award for Best Picture and other honors this year, there is a famous scene where the father of a poor family advises his son. He shares a philosophy of life that it is better to have no plan because plans always fail, a part that was particularly well-received in the West. However, this is followed by the striking line: "I don't give a damn if you kill someone or sell out the country. Do you understand?" I was surprised to see that in the United States, this was translated as "No one cares if the country is destroyed or sold." This is because the original text is a crucial line that hints at the protagonist family's ethics while foreshadowing the shocking conclusion.

While it might seem like a minor detail in the context of the whole work, that line actually garnered attention in the US and was interpreted as a critique of the ruling class and the wealthy. Looking at the impressions of critics and audiences at the time, many people discussed the work as a whole by specifically citing that scene, saying things like, "I was moved in the theater." This created empathy for the poor family as "socially vulnerable" people "disappointed in the state," leading to the narrative that the protagonist was "driven" to the unexpected act at the very end of the story. Eventually, the film was acclaimed as a critique of capitalism and the wealth gap—where society turns people into monsters—while the characters' personalities and true motives were ignored. While it cannot be denied that "Parasite" contains elements of social critique, isn't it a bad habit of Westerners to over-read the social background of Eastern countries and forget the fictional and entertaining nature of the work? Much like how the legend of ubasute (abandoning the elderly) in Shohei Imamura's "The Ballad of Narayama" (1983) was taken seriously as a historical Japanese custom.

Interpretations of films can and should vary widely. It is also inevitable that evaluations of a work are influenced by limited knowledge of the country of origin, the sensibilities of the receiving culture, and social conditions. Nevertheless, the role of "translation" is immense. Although the line in question was reportedly corrected later, it can only be described as too little, too late.