By Rebekah Bradshaw
In many ways, Hollywood, and popular culture more generally, has become a kind of lingua franca for the younger generations across the globe. Whilst on exchange in France, I chatted with local students about their love of American films and TV series – many of them consumed popular culture as a way to improve their English skills.
I remember a conversation with one student who told me her favourite Hollywood film was "Maman, j'ai raté l'avion!" (Mum, I missed the plane!) Well, I had never heard of any film by that name before, so I asked her to tell me what it was about. She described the story of a young boy whose family accidentally leaves him behind for the holidays, forcing him to fend off a duo of burglars intent on breaking into his house… of course, her favourite film was Home Alone!
Thinking about this conversation recently sent me down a late-night rabbit hole of google searches to find equally bizarre translations of other well-known film titles. Here are just a few of my favourites:
Les dents de la mer (The Teeth of the Sea): somehow this French title makes the film Jaws seem even more terrifying than before…
Drengen, der druknede i chokoladesovsen (The Boy who Drowned in Chocolate): the literal translation of this Danish title sounds incredibly dark for the children’s film that it is, but then again, the 1970s version of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is known for bringing out some of Roald Dahl’s grislier themes.
Se mi lasci ti cancello (If You Leave Me, I Delete You): the Italian translation is just a little less poetic and a little more threatening than the English Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
007は二度死ぬ (007 wa nido shinu, 007 Dies Twice): The Japanese adopt a glass-half-empty perspective on the James Bond film You Only Live Twice.
Un canguro superduro (A Super Tough Kangaroo): apparently the Spanish think action star Vin Diesel is comparable to an Australian marsupial, because this is their title for his film The Pacifier. The Germans opted for a made-up but kick-ass sounding word with Der Babynator, whilst the French appear to have had the same goal in mind but somehow decided on Baby-sittor (no, that’s not a typo.)
S.O.S Fantômes (S.O.S Ghosts): This is definitely what the Paris-based branch of Ghostbusters would be called.
Geshem Shel Falafel (Falafel Rain): when in Israel, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs gets a delicious update to reflect a different spherical snack. I’d be happy with either kind of rain!
マルコヴィッチの穴 (Malkovich no ana, The Hole of Malkovich): probably the strangest of these literal translations, I can only hope that the title makes more sense in Japanese. Being John Malkovich is itself a very bizarre film – perhaps it does earn itself an equally bizarre title translation.
Y a-t-il un pilote dans l'avion? (Is There a Pilot on this Plane?): the American comedy Airplane! is an odd one. Even growing up in another English speaking country, I called this film by a different name – it’s known as Flying High! to Australians. The French have decided to expand a little more on the punchy title supplied by the Americans, but no one could lengthen a phrase quite like the Germans: they went with the very long-winded Die unglaubliche Reise in einem verrückten Flugzeug (The Unbelievable Journey in a Crazy Plane), thus increasing the length of the original title by 700%.
Throne of Blood: it’s not just other countries translating film titles from English in strange ways. Akira Kurosawa’s Japanese retelling of Shakespeare’s Macbeth was originally called 蜘蛛巣城 (Kumonosu-jō), which translates to Spider-Web Castle or Cobweb Castle. Evidently, the translators didn’t think this was spine-chilling enough for their English-speaking audiences.
There remains a special category for French film titles that have been translated from English...into English! These new English titles often bear very little resemblance to the originals. There are many examples of this phenomenon, but some noteworthy examples include Very Bad Trip for The Hangover, and Happiness Therapy for Silver Linings Playbook.
So, why on earth do film titles get such an odd treatment around the world? Did our translators take a day off? Is Google Translate now in charge of naming all our films??
Translating a film title is a difficult job, often a mixture of linguistics and marketing. Not only does the translated title have to make sense in its target language, it also must make people want to go and see the film. A translator can’t just have a knowledge of the words and their meanings, they also need to understand the cultural references of both original and target languages. Sometimes a particular phrase or expression just won’t make sense directly translated, or it might not be catchy enough to go on a poster. This is where the translator has to be creative and come up with a new title that still captures the essence of the film. It’s a challenging juggling act, and one that is not always successful!
There are many different ways that translators may choose to approach a film title, the simplest of all being to leave the original title as is. This often works if the title is short and consists of English words that are fairly universally understood. The next option is to directly translate the title, or translate the title with some small changes to make it work better in the target language.
The translator might also choose to compromise, keeping part of the original title and following this up with a translated phrase. This is ideal when the film is part of a well-recognised franchise (for example, Spider-Man: Far From Home becomes Spider-Man: Lejos de casa in Spanish). The final and most extreme option is for the translator to come up with a translated title that is completely unrelated to its original. It is up to the translator to decide how best to approach each new title, depending on their knowledge of both languages and cultures, and keeping the target audience of the film in mind.
And so, spare a thought for the translators next time you are at the cinema browsing the new releases!