Since the lockdown has started, I have gorged
on a lot of shows and movies that were pending on my list since a long time and
of course those that I wanted to watch because of peer pressure or countless
articles on the internet. OTT platforms always provide a wide arena of
entertainment, with the gush of new releases almost every week. During the
lockdown period we realise their importance more than ever. We don’t have to
struggle to watch our favourite shows now while standing or sitting in an
overcrowded local train, but we can enjoy them sitting at home while
maintaining social distancing. Thanks to OTT platforms, our entertainment is
not only restricted to Hindi, English and regional languages. Our taste in
entertainment has crossed even the English-speaking borders. The world may have
restricted its geographical borders, but entertainment content, like a river,
is continuing to flow all over the world. Without an indispensable element
called ‘subtitles’, this virtual adventure across the world would not have been
possible.
The first series that I watched after the
lockdown started was Money Heist. Season 4 had already released, and people
were raving about it all over the social media. Joining the bandwagon, I
started watching this acclaimed Netflix Spanish series. I have heard some
people say that they are not fond of foreign language content because it is
more of reading than watching. I agreed with them on some level. Hence, I began
watching the first episode with English audio. Within 5 minutes I realised that
I was not enjoying the show, not because the content was bad, but the
characters would have felt more natural and convincing if I listened to them in
Spanish. I changed the audio to Spanish and subtitles to English and my
involvement in watching the show grew better. Thus, English subtitles helped me
enjoy the show in its authentic sense and I became yet another fan of Money
Heist. I listened to Spanish and read in English and realised that the two
languages had quite some words in common. Having watched Narcos before which
was almost 80% Spanish, I was familiar with some Spanish words. Also, as a
child, Ricky Martin’s song ‘Un, dos, tres’
had taught me ‘one, two, three’ of Spanish if not A, B, C.
This year the South Korean movie Parasite won four Oscars including Best
International Feature Film and Best Picture. It created a mark in the history of
Oscars by being the first ever non-English movie to win Best Picture. The
movie’s director, Bong Joon-Ho on winning Best Foreign Language Film at the
Golden Globes said, “Once you overcome the one-inch-tall barrier of subtitles,
you will be introduced to so many more amazing films”. It is absolutely true as
we would have never experienced the masterpiece that Parasite was, without English subtitles. It would have been missing
out on something great. Even in India, we have growing number of people who
enjoy watching Korean content or ‘K-Dramas’ as they are fondly called. In
today’s age of entertainment where content is king, language is no more a
barrier. With the help of subtitles, quality content can reach a wider
audience. South Korean movies like Train
to Busan and Parasite that I
watched boasted of unique concepts and powerful stories. From the limited
Korean content that I watched, it was nice to know more about the country’s
unique mannerisms, culture and society, and what could be a better depiction of
the society other than series and movies? I found it amusing to listen to the
various intonations in which the language was spoken. While watching Korean, I
have to strictly maintain my eye co-ordination between watching and reading,
for nothing can be interpreted from what is spoken, unlike European content
where some similarity with English can be established.
I remember the times when we were shown German
movies in our class. On one such occasion, the subtitles of the movie we had
planned to watch were not working. Panic rose in our class and the spirit
started to dampen because our crutch to enjoy and understand the movie itself
had ratted on us. Our teacher tried to assuage our fears by saying that
probably we would not need subtitles as we had known the language for quite a
long time then and understanding the dialogues would not be difficult. Yet we
had our doubts. Trying to understand the context with strained ears in bits and
pieces from the actors’ expressions and lip movements would have killed the
movie watching experience. Fortunately, the technical glitch was resolved as
though with a magic wand and the subtitles worked. There was a rhapsody in the
class and renewed vigour to watch the movie, now that our ‘support system’ was
back. Till date I watch German content with subtitles. Where German subtitles
are available, I try as much as possible to watch the movie or series with
them, so that I can learn new words in the ‘watching and reading’ process.
Why cross the geographical boundaries of India,
when our country is embellished with so many languages and equally rich content
in regional languages! In recent times, I explored more of Tollywood and Kollywood.
Those languages are not similar to Hindi and hence English subtitles lead the
way to understand and appreciate the quality content. Every time I watch something
in a language that I don’t know, I silently thank the people who write
subtitles and make it accessible to all viewers and are responsible for
correctly conveying the message that the makers of a show or movie want to
deliver to their audience. Their understanding of the nuances of the language
must be truly remarkable.
Nowadays no entertainment content is ‘foreign’
as such because of its omniscient availability on OTT platforms in all possible
gadgets that we own. Shows like Dark (German), Fauda (Arabic), Crash Landing on You (Korean) and many
more have garnered positive reviews from critics and viewers alike all over the
world. Every language has its own beauty in form of unique expressions, idioms
and even expletives, which cannot be translated to English every time. Yes, the
subtitles may give you an English equivalent to that, but the real essence lies
in the original idiom or expression, which belongs to no one but that language,
state, or country itself and cannot be really ‘translated’. But of course, we
look at the bigger picture. We want to get a general sense of what we are watching,
and that purpose is served with the help of subtitles. At times I find myself
depending on subtitles even in unimaginable situations. Once I saw two Germans
in my office conversing with each other in their mother tongue. Though I understood
the crux of what they spoke, I silently muttered ‘Subtitles please!’ to
understand the words that I couldn’t catch. Later I laughed at myself for
inadvertently being dependent on subtitles even in daily life. Today we don’t
need to be polyglots to watch content in any language, for subtitles are present
to do the needful. They are the bridges that connect our interest to watch a
show or movie with the language that we are not familiar with. Sitting and banking
on this bridge, we as viewers, need to simply sit back, relax and enjoy the
show!
