When we open our eyes and dream we open our eyes

[sovay]

I have just returned from seeing Paprika (2006) at the Kendall Square Cinema with gaudior and eredien and other cool people I don't see often enough; they invited me on the theory that I would be interested by virtue of subject matter and they were right. This was the first film-length anime I have ever seen and I loved it. At different points in its plot, it reminded me of Patricia McKillip's Fool's Run, Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash, and Neil Gaiman's The Sandman, but mostly it seems to have been reminiscent of itself; it is about dreams and movies and some of the most eerily catchy music I have ever heard. I am not sure that I should attempt to provide anything like a plot summary, but I would suggest you not miss it. I may try to see it again myself.

Planted in the future, we live two lives
All to reveal a secret we can't hide . . .
—Sam Phillips, "How To Dream"

Comments

[sovay]

So far, the only English dub I've liked is Neil Gaiman's adaptation for Princess Mononoke.

I have never seen a film where I preferred the dubbing to the subtitles; I try to avoid dubbed films as much as possible. Voices are so much a part of the character, I don't even understand the phenomenon.

[setsuled.livejournal.com]

Voices are so much a part of the character, I don't even understand the phenomenon.

I'm definitely with you on that one. And most of the time, it's a matter of truly lousy actors replacing good ones. Watch some of the anime on Adult Swim and you'll see what I mean. A lot of them use the same Canadian production studio and they tend to have four or five actors doing everyone's voice--actors who aren't even good at changing their voice. A lot of them tend to do it by giving some characters no variance of emotion. But going to the Japanese version, you can hear a remarkable amount of nuance put into the performances. I feel like I've talked to you about this before, but voice actors are highly respected in Japan (see the Wikipedia entry on "Seiyu" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seiyu)).

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

I have never seen a film where I preferred the dubbing to the subtitles; I try to avoid dubbed films as much as possible. Voices are so much a part of the character, I don't even understand the phenomenon.

Word. Even if I don't understand the language, I'd rather be able to hear what's being said as it is.

I remember one movie about the wars in the former Yugoslavia, and the sound of an actor playing an officer of the UN peacekeepers with a thick Oxbridge accent on his SerboCroatian. It seemed important, and I don't know how it could have been rendered in a dub.

Then again, I couldn't take the French translation of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, cos it seemed so very bland. Hagrid was just a dumb guy who spoke in simple sentences--maybe turning him into a peasant out of one of Guy de Maupassant's short stories would've been a mistake, but I'm not sure it would've been any worse.