Is my dvd knackered or is there intentionally no english subtitles for the cambodian parts?
I know some movies omit subs in small sections to make the audience feel a little more confused but there is a large part of this movie just in cambodian.
I don't know if a subtitled version exists or not. But, there were certainly no subtitles whatsoever on the version shown on BBC1 on Wednesday night... I didn't mind it - it gives the audience credit for being intelligent enough to work out what's going on by other means.
shareI watched it too on BBC, I didn't mind either the fact that there were no subtitles
And it is Khmer not Cambodian
I could understand there being no subtitles during the scenes with the Americans..because they probably tried to put you in their place by not having a clue what anyone was saying....but I think there should have been subtitles for the later scenes with just the Cambodians.
my other gripe is the poor sound quality early in the film..we couldn't hear what they were saying due to the explosions and helicopter sounds.
And my other gripe is that for someone who doesn't know much about this part of history it wasn't made very clear.Maybe captions telling you where they were..who the different groups of soldiers were etc...might have helped
It definitely needs subtitles for the conversations in Khmer. There's just too many of them. Wouldn't you want to know what they're saying in the scene where Pran talks to the small group of KRs with the little boy later in the movie? You know, when he makes those "driving" gestures?
shareNot really. I don't speak Khmer, but he clearly says "TAXI" and indeed, upon some research, I learned that Dith Pran impersonated a taxi driver in order to prevent the government from finding out he was a journalist.
In the same way, you can clearly tell that the officer who trusts him with his son attempts to trick him into speaking English and French.
I found it quite laudable how the film-makers managed to make the scenes understandbe for a foreign audience.
I, too, would like to know what was said during the "TAXI, TAXI" parts. So tell us kleptomanie, you wondergenius, what tipped off Phat to Pran's education?
shareI don't remember now because I watched the movie really long ago, but I think he was caught trying to use a radio? I'm not sure, but I am sure you can find it somewhere.
shareA few minutes later Pran and the leader of the camp discuss him pretending to be a taxi driver. That conversation was subtitled in my version at least.
I think not subtitling the French and Cambodian/Khmer dialogue may have been intentional to put the viewer in the place of an outsider trying to understand what's going on rather than as a member of an audience listening to a story. It does make it more difficult to tell the story without dialogue but I think it makes the viewer think more about what's going on than if the story is all laid out for you.
But not a good way to spell out a cohesive movie.
shareIsn't it Thai language? I too
would like to have those lines with English subtitles. I once owned an old VHS copy of this and it had the Khmer language subtitled. I think it made the movie more interesting. Especially in the Year Zero scene with the indoctrinated children marching in a ring with their fists in the air.
One can make out some of what's said later. I now own the Dutch Bluray and it has only Dutch and French subtitles which I can't read.