Sunday, June 24, 2007

The director Timur Bekmambetov turns film subtitling into an art

The 1994 Russian film, Night Watch, and the sequel, Day Watch (which is currently in U.S. theaters), are both really amazing films which have a treat for non-Russian speakers.  The subtitles aren’t boring.  They have character and become a part of the film.  An article in the International Herald Tribune describes it best.

When “Night Watch” was a hit in Russia, Fox Searchlight, the indie subsidiary of the Hollywood studio, Fox, decided to release it internationally. Rather than dub the original, Bekmambetov insisted on subtitling it and took charge of the design process himself. He conceived the subtitles as “another character in the film, another way to tell the story,” rather than treating them as extras.

The result was sensational. Most of the subtitles in “Night Watch” are in clear, white sans serif lettering, but others adopt different guises to reflect the mood and action of the film. Some glide across the screen from different angles. Others glow in red, if a character is especially angry or agitated (as they often are in Bekmambetov’s movies). One explodes in a puff of smoke after an explosion. Another, uttered when a character heard voices in his head while swimming, dissolves like blood in the water of the pool. Anthony Lane, film critic of The New Yorker, described those subtitles as “the best I have encountered.”

For more about this very creative director, please visit IMDb or Wikipedia.