Understanding Film and the Role of Translation

The first Japanese film I ever saw in a theater was Shohei Imamura's "The Eel" (1997), starring Koji Yakusho, which won the Palme d'Or at Cannes. Even reading the Spanish subtitles for the few lines of dialogue, I could hardly understand anything. 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 when the story contained universal elements. In such a situation, empathizing with them was out of the question.

In the South Korean film "Parasite," which won the Academy Award for Best Picture this year, there is a famous scene where the father of the 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 perishes or is sold." This is because the original text is a crucial line that hints at the family's ethics while foreshadowing the shocking conclusion.

While this might seem like a trivial detail considering the work as a whole, that line actually garnered attention in the U.S. 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 cited that specific scene, saying they were "moved in the theater" while discussing the work overall. This created empathy for the poor family as "socially vulnerable" people who were "disappointed in the state," supporting the discourse 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 social inequality—where society turns people into monsters—while the characters' personalities and true motives were ignored. It is undeniable that "Parasite" contains elements of social critique, but 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? Just as the legend of Ubasute in Shohei Imamura's "The Ballad of Narayama" (1983) was taken seriously as a historical Japanese custom.

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