When Parasite won the Oscar for the Best International Feature Film, South Korean director, Bong Joon Ho, in his acceptance speech said, ‘Once you overcome the one-inch-tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films.’ To all those uninitiated in consuming content with subtitles, let me tell you a kutti story…

It was a lazy Sunday evening during the good-old pre-pandemic days. I visited my friend’s house; that’s what people did back then. He was curled up on his sofa with a steaming cup of filter coffee. A Spanish movie was playing on his 49-inch television. He asked me if I had watched the movie. I said no and added that I would rather read a novel than read a movie.

Now, after surviving 2020 and 2021, and battling 2022, I have become a voracious reader of movies. And this transition has happened because I overcame the subtitle barrier.

The journey begins

My journey of watching subtitled content began in late 2019 with the Tamil movie, Thiruda Thiruda. I watched it because my wife coaxed me into it. Her persistence was not because the movie is a masterpiece but because it features A. R. Rahman’s soulful music. As a Rahman fan, I had nothing to lose. Overall, it was a good movie-viewing experience, post which, the concept of watching a movie with subtitles didn’t seem too alien.

Next on the list was a Spanish movie, The Invisible Guest. This was before its Hindi remake, Badla had been released. The movie was so thrilling that it didn’t matter if it was subtitled or in English. I was hooked! Watching it gave me the confidence that if the story is intriguing and the movie is well-made, then subtitles help you understand the language of cinema.

I was ready for the final frontier — watching a subtitled movie on the big screen. And what better option than Parasite, which received Oscar nominations at that time (and eventually won) not just in the Best International Feature Film category but also in the Best Picture category. I went, I watched, and I was stunned!

A new world

Earlier, my staple cinema diet consisted of titles in Marathi, Hindi, and English. Recently, the diet has become more exciting, exotic, and eclectic. Apart from the recommended popular titles like Squid Game (Korean), Dark Desire (Spanish), and Pushpa: The Rise – Part 1 (Telugu), I have also tried out lesser-known but interesting titles like The Kingdom (Korean), Dhh (Gujarati), Pahuna: The Little Visitors (Nepali). And this is just the tip of the iceberg. And I haven’t even begun to fully explore the new-age Malayalam cinema of which Fahadh Faasil has become a poster boy!

For instance, Kumbalangi Nights (Malayalam) is visually stunning. Set in the world-famous backwaters of Kerala, this movie is an adorable lovechild of a painting and a poem. And Fa Fa won the Kerala State Film Award for Best Character Actor for the chilling portrayal of the patriarchal and psychotic, Shammi in the movie. His 2020 and 2021 filmography include Trance, C U Soon, Irul, Joji, Malik, Pushpa: The Rise – Part 1. All these movies have an engaging premise, to say the least.

Also, keeping the Malayalam-cinema flag flying high is Marakkar: Lion of the Arabian Sea. Written and directed by Priyadarshan, Marakkar has won the 67^th National Award for Best Feature Film, Best Costume Design, and Best Special Effects. Previous winners in the Best Feature Film category were Hellaro (Gujarati), Village Rockstars (Assamese), Kaasav (Marathi), and Bahubali: The Beginning (Telugu). To put this in context, the last purely Hindi movie to win this award was Paan Singh Tomar, which was released in 2012.

Lost in translation

Watching regional or international content in a dubbed language is not the same as watching it in the language it is made in. A lot of nuances are lost in translation. To gauge if this is true, I tried watching the English-dubbed version of Sacred Games, and it felt inorganic, pretentious, and bland.

Agreed that nuances are lost even in the case of subtitles. But with subtitles, you can at least hear the authentic voices delivering dialogues in peculiar accents in the local dialects. There’s music in the way people speak. Dubbing muffles this music. While dubbing replaces the original dialogues with ones that might strike a chord, it lacks an organic melody. Besides, something always seems off when the voice we hear does not match the lip movements of the speaker, doesn’t it?

Having said that, it is certainly better to watch a dubbed movie instead of not watching it at all. I missed experiencing Bahubali in Telegu as I had watched it in Hindi. In hindsight, I would’ve loved to know Katappa ne Bahubali ko kyun mara in Telegu instead of Hindi.

Language of cinema

There’s no denying that cinema can be a unifying force. Ever-growing fan clubs are a testimony to it. However, this unification is possible even in cases where divisions are rather stark. And one feels this just by empathising with the characters of regional and international cinema. They may appear vastly different from our own. But if you look closely, things that make us all tick are similar across cultures and imaginary boundaries.

Good regional and international content nudges you towards empathy by making you sit up and take notice. You start by acknowledging that we have different languages, cultures, and perspectives. Next, you see yourself accepting the differences and similarities among them. And finally, you embrace the possibility of multiple truths and make peace with it. Perhaps, even rejoice in it.

In a world where the ‘Us vs Them’ divide is fuelled by people with vested interests, empathy stimulated by the universal language of cinema can be a robust binding factor against the isolating themes of class, caste, and religion. This may seem like a tall order but the one-inch subtitle barrier might be an easy starting point. Break it.

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