:smack: My wife and I watched Babel last night on DVD. Pretty much figured out what was happening and enjoyed it, despite the fact that one family was speaking Moroccan and another Japanese. But this morning, I looked up the movie in Wikipedia and discovered a lot of details that did not come through in our viewing. Suddenly, I think, did we watch this entire movie with the subtitles turned off? :smack: Otherwise, how does Wiki know these details? And, in fact, there was great confusion on our part about the connection between the Japanese story and the rest of the stories. We made up what we thought was happening, of course. But was one of the points of the movie to confuse us via lack of universal translation ability? So, was the movie subtitled in the theaters? Jeez.
Wait. No one saw Babel? No one can answer the question? Argh. Mods, can this go to GQ?
One of the differences between DVDs and VHS is that, almost always, subtitles can be turned on or off; most discs have several languages available. The downside of this is that sometimes, though rarely in discs made for the US market, subtitles do not display automatically: you have to go in and turn them on. (For some reason, this seems more likely to happen when you watch the disc on a computer.)
Ohmygod. I understand that. I just wanted to know if the movie was subtitled in theaters, and if not, how did Wikipedia know the details, and how did moviegoers have a clue about the Japanese subplot?
Yes, it was. Including the Japanese girls’ sign-language.
Thank you
I’m incredibly interested in this, especially considering what I concluded was the point of the movie. I think I would have enjoyed it more without subtitles.
Tell us more about what you thought of it, CC.
We thought that the lack of translation was part of the movie’s point - that one could deduce a great deal about life as shown in movies by attending to the various conventions and grammar of film. And we did. We thought that the long scenes in other languages was one of the primary conceits of the movie. And that in itself causes you to consider how language works, verbal and non-verbal, and how movies work, too. So for the most part, we enjoyed the movie. We could see the connections between the couple in Morocco (although we didn’t know it was Morocco), the story about the boys and their father and the rifle, and the story about the housekeeper. All three were compelling and interesting stories by themselves. The Japanese story was much harder to follow, since there were many scenes in which the girl was just talking with someone - such as those involving the police department. On the other hand, it was clear that the girl was struggling with acceptance, with her own budding maturity, and with her father. We could not, however, deduce her family situation, nor the connection between her story and the other three. That said, her story was most compelling and moving, and captivated us despite not knowing those connections. But because the movie ends pretty much in the Japanese story, it left us with a pretty empty feeling - unsatisfied. However, now that I know the actual story, it doesn’t seem as if we missed much at all, in the big scheme of things. Yes, her father was the connection to the shooting, via the rifle, but how much does that change the movie? Not much. If the point of the movie is a version of the trite chaos theory statement - that a butterfly wing flapping in Brazil can cause a nuclear war to break out in Korea - i.e. everything is connected - then I think the point was made anyway. We didn’t know the connection between the Japanese story and the other three stories, but we could assume there probably was one. I suppose that having subtitles would have made some aspects much more clear, but in the final analysis, I don’t think they were necessary. I think, in fact, that seeing the movie with subtitles would have left us with the same unfinished feeling that we were left with anyway. In fact, it may be that the movie was more intriguing without them, and that an unsubtitled version of the movie could be created in which the Japanese girl’s story was made a bit more explicit and the overall effect would be pretty much the same, although the audience would have a good deal more to do in viewing the movie. It was not a very passive experience for us. Strangely enjoyable, but insufficient because of its lack of clarity. That’s pretty much my view. Does that help at all?
xo, C.
Yeah, he’s a peach, ain’t he?
When my wife and I watched it for the first time just prior to this year’s Oscars, I made a half-assed attempt (and failed) to turn them on at about the Moroccan masturbation scene.
Without benefit of spoilers or any help from reviews, we got everything except the note and the full details about the suicide (I was sure it was a plunge from the balcony but my wife wasn’t convinced). We thought it was masterful this way and it made for a nice conversation afterward.
The best part was focusing on the alien beauty of the spoken words, especially the vocalizations from the Japanese girls. It might seem silly but I’d never thought about how another language would sound from a deaf person. It was fascinating.
Kind of along the lines of what you said, CC, I noticed the hunting photograph in the Japanese home and recognized the Moroccan “dealer.” The rifle’s lineage made me at first think the police were hunting its origin, which brought to mind the fucked-up Bushworld in which we live where even a thoughtful gift might turn into an International Arms Deal™.
The point I got from the movie was that fucked up shit happens when we can’t understand each other. I didn’t read any chaos theory into it. YMMV.
What. The. Fuck. I was trying to be helpful. Sorry if I didn’t quite understand the question being asked before I made an effort to help. It seemed obvious to me that he watched the movie without subtitles because he assumed that the default–sans subtitles–was the intended mode, when clearly it was not.
What’s with the fucking sarcasm? This is CS, not the pit.
Irony, thy name is Charley. You of all people should be able to take a little good-natured ribbing, especially when it appears you didn’t even read the thread title? 
How’d the BOЯAT Crisis of '07 pan out, BTW?
I did read the thread title, and I offered what information I had, which I thought might be helpful, though I knew it was not a complete answer and I assumed someone else would be along to provide that. And I get hit with two sarcastic responses. The information I contributed seemed relevant, if not exhaustive, and I think it stinks that the only response it got was a doubly whammy of dismissive sarcasm.
Done here; hijack over.
Actually, I didn’t see where lack of ability to speak two languages was a major impediment or problem in this movie. The woman was shot and it was clear she needed attention, language or not. The people on the bus left them there, not because of language problems but their own, one might say, selfish motives. The Mexican family got into trouble not so much because of language barriers, but because of social and political barriers that have been erected. Now, on the other hand, people did not understand one another in some cases because they refused to listen or to be willing to understand. The border police, for example. If that’s what you mean, then I saw that, too.
I only referred to chaos theory to point out that one thread in the movie is the fact that everything is connected - even seemingly very distant events and people. Can’t understand each other or won’t. In both ways lie the seeds of serious trouble.
I thought your analysis was brilliantly written CC, ignore the idiot.
I saw the movie in the theater and, yes, it was subtitled.
Like you, I was wondering if the subtitles essentially destroyed the director/writers message… what good is a movie called “Babel” if all the languages are translated? What I did see was a movie where a lot of people made stupid choices… it would have been a more interesting experience had I seen the movie as you did.
(And, yes, I know this thread is a 7yo zombie, but there it is.)
I heard that you were supposed to watch without subtitles from a friend who saw it in theaters…
Glad to have found this conversation regardless of it being years later. This movie is one for the ages.
Ironically, my vague recollection of my experience of the DVD is that subtitles default to “off” and turning them on creates a situation wherein player-generated subs sometimes appear simultaneous with some subtitles that are not player-generated (in other words, burned in). It’s been years so I don’t recall 100%, but I have a vague recollection of that technical problem completely aside from (but ironically related to) the issue of whether or not subs are ‘necessary’ in a film called BABEL about global interconnectedness and inability to communicate (well-described by the original poster, CC).
Bubbling up in my Netflix DVD/BD (yes, they still mail discs in 2022) queue soon is the entire Inarritu/Arriaga overlapping narratives trilogy (AMORES PERROS, 21 GRAMS, BABEL). I’m looking forward to re-visiting all three on Blu-ray and will once again address this issue in the coming months when I finally watch BABEL again. I found it so devastating years ago I’ve been procrastinating on watching it again, all at once fearful that it won’t . . . and that it would . . . be as good as I remember.
Glad to see Alejando is still working. BARDO is in theaters and on Netflix next week.
There’s also this indication that the presence or absence of subs in the actual film print theatrically depended upon what market/country in which one was seeing the film.
I’m a little puzzled by the question “If there were no subtitles, how did Wikipedia know what was going on?”. There are people out there who speak Japanese, and Moroccan, and all the other languages in the movies, and some of those people edit Wikipedia.