So, am I the only African person who has watched this film and wondered why the two 'brothers' were speaking in two completely different languages?! One was speaking Twi, a language from Ghana, and god knows what the other one was speaking. 99.99% of people watching wouldn't have noticed, but of course it really irritated me. But I guess Africans are just Africans.....
shareI think the reason for this is simple necessity.
Casting is a hard job, not in the least because you must try to find people who fit the bill. They needed to find two African men who I think also had to have all of their herritage from below the Sahara (This because of her views on how to regard race/etnicity, fairer skinned black men would simply not make do I think) and who could both speak an indigenous African language with great ease, appearing as if they weren't able to speak English (or any other Western European language for that matter), who had no objections to playing a highly explicit part in a highly controversial movie from a highly controversial director(aren't alot of African people either Christian or Muslim - and aren't they in greater numbers and generally more traditional and devout than Western Christians? If that is true then that also highly reduces the number of actors who would want to portray this part.) Then these actors would also have to be able to be professional and motivated to safeguard the integrity from Gainsbourg and themselves (and simply be able to keep a straight face) in such unusual and intimate circumstances and lastly they also needed to have sufficient acting ability to portray the intensity of the scene and those types, acting out a believable (possibly escalating) disagreement, giving of a vibe that could be described and interpreted as "dangerous" as it is by the main character (which they did a good job at I think). So after checking off all these qualities for the to-be-casted actors it might have simply been to difficult to find two actors who then could also both speak the exact same indigenous African language who didn't live to far from where they were shooting and could be available during the timeframe when they would shoot.
So, indeed concidering that probbably only 00.01% of the people who'd watch this movie as you said would notice, von Trier or his casting director might have choosen to simply go for these fine young gentlemen who both could speak at least an indigenous African language instead of waisting more time and recources by postponing the shooting to look for one or even two new actors to have both men in this scene speaking the same language.
That explanation kind of makes sense, although Ghanaians aren't all religious! It's a major scene, so I still think they could have made more of an effort. But since nobody else seems to have noticed I guess it's a moot point.
shareYes, this.
I'm amazed it took to the second page before someone said so.
One of the languages included French. I assume that they were switching back and forth between a colonial language and a native language, which plenty of Africans do.
shareI don't think so. Firstly, one of the languages was Twi, which is from Ghana, which was never a French colony. Secondly, I'm pretty sure the other language wasn't French anyway.
shareI understand that Ghana is Anglophone, but listen again, some French was mixed in when one of the men spoke. It caught me by surprise. I happen to know Ghanaians who speak French in addition to their native tongue(s) and English so perhaps it's a minority language.
shareI think it's amusing that anyone actually thinks Lars VonTrier just made a huge mistake.
The scene was played in such a way to depict her complete lack of understanding of anything that was going on other than the attempt to feel pleasure again, and therefore her unreliabilty as a relayer of the story.
She could only guess as to even the reason to why they were arguing, though probably accurate. As to the comments of them as brothers, it is clearly a racial thing. She even called them "negro brothers" at one point.
It seems to me that they were intentionally speaking two different languages to show the absurdity of it all, keeping the viewers, many of which who probably understood one or both of the languages, as confused as she was to what the heck was happening.
"Pull out.I can't get pregnant now your dad may be floating around looking for a body to reincarnate