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Babel: Subtitles?!?
Comments(51)
I watched Babel last night. Interesting, enjoyable movie. The most interesting part was that the majority of the movie was in a language other than English, but there were no subtitles.
I decided to try to look up the meaning of the Japan story, because I couldn’t make heads or tails of it. I’m beginning to realize that perhaps the movie was supposed to have subtitles after all, but my questionably attained copy was missing them.
Hmm. I thought the director is very brave, and I’m very patient to sit thru so much untranslated dialogue. I now realize the director is not quite that brave, and I’m quite the idiot.
Babel has subtitles for the foreign language parts, doesn’t it?
Well, on the plus side, I did get to make up my own stories for what was going on…
You are not alone. I sat throught the entire movie last night without subtitles, with the same thoughts going through my mind. I still can’t decide whether I think the film was shown with subtitles at the theater. I’m looking forward to finding out.
I have another questionably attained movie. I just finished watching it without subtitles which I as well thought was the idea. The movies called babel and perhaps that was the idea that was meant to be put across. Afterwards my curiousity about the actual dialog got the better of me and i realized the option for subtitles wasnt available to me. On the website http://www.paramountvantage.com/babel/ it explains generally what the story was behind each ….story. But I still want to know if in fact it was meant to be in subtitles or not. If so i think it would be worthwhile to watch the movie as it was meant to be watched
I haven’t seen the movie but from the site above, if you watch the small video sections available, all have subtitles.
thanks pooya
I watched it w/o subtitles and it was part (most) of the charm of the movie if you ask me. Just after seeing the movie I hit the web to see if I was supposed to use subs or not. The more I think about I think I could care less if I was really suposed to use subs. The expierience would not be ruined.
I’m in a similar situation. watched about half hr of the movie, and started to wonder if it was meant to be watched without the subtitles.
can anyone confirm that the original ( say at the theater) has subtitles or not?
I got confirmation from a friend who saw it at the theater that it did have subtitles.
Uh oh. Half way through now… should I restart with SHUBSTIZLES???
Just watched the entire 2hrs 28mins without subtitles – do yourself a favour, and watch the propper version first. Ill never get that part of my life back. /rant.
I just watched it without subs and thought it was fantastic. I speak only english and only cought a few words of spanish but the real issue in the movie and every sub-story is communication, isn’t it? I for one think everyone should watch the movie with no subs the first time; it really made an impact on me and it forces you to pay attention to everything, not just the words. Hopefully one day I will know all those languages and can do this again with more understanding; i never intend to find subs for this movie.
wow… i thought i was alone… aparently everyone has had this issue… but i believe the movie was well spoken with out words…
still think i should have watched it with words… but oh well…
a scene of noise and confusion is meaning of the word babel. i only watched about 5 minutes of the film and stopped because whenever i watch a film i want to capture every piece information and watching something with languages i couldn’t comprehend certainly doesn’t help. but as the name is called babel, perhaps its purpose is for people to watch actions in the movie and understand stories and people rather than reading word for word having everything explained. as far as foreign language films go, a lot of pirated copies don’t include subtitles to save space and download time for us freeloaders. here is a cool website for those in need of captions http://divxstation.com/subtitles.asp hope it helps. ^^
Hi,
you can find subtitles in English for Babel here : http://www.mysubtitles.com/movie/babel_31560.html
Enjoy!
Add us to the list of non-subtitled viewers…. just had a hoot reading that we weren’y alone too! Quite enjoyed it as well, though found the long Japanese dialogues a bit inpenertrable!
Peace!
That is quite hilarious – I watched 2/3rds of the film without subtitles as I just hit ‘play movie’ on the main menu, and was enjoying the alienating/babel-like experience, then stopped it, had to find my way in again in the ’scene selections’ and realised that there were subtitles as these switched on automatically at that point. Hmmmm…what is the intention here? I thought it worked better without, but I was missing some of the plotline. Overall the film was rather too focused on the American vicitims’ experience (as in ‘what a terrible, scary, bloody, crazily sexy world everything outside of safe America can be’), and I keep measuring this film experience against the excellent and moving ‘Amores Perros’.
Its a nice thing to hit the web and find “many” people who had the same experience and same thoughts as one just had.
I really enjoyed the movie without subtitles. The only thing i want to know more about now is the japan-story.
You really need the subtitles to “get” this flick. If you download the torrent, it should come with a .SRT file. A great source is:
http://www.torrentz.com/search?q=axxo
The .SRT file is included with the torrent, and can be navigated to when opening the .AVI file through programs like VLC Media Player which I use.
I learn something new every day!
Cheers,
Brian James
We did it too. I was convinced it was part of the movie not to have subtitles, because thats how the world realy is if you cant understand a lanuage. I thought it was pretty cool and visualy easy to follow the story, I only figuered it out when the japanese dialog got pretty heavy towards the end. My friend clames to have known the whole time…yeah right.
Go to the dvd’s main menu and choose setup, then choose ingles subtitles
then press play this will give you ingles subtitles for the non ingles parts of the movie.
Also, if your dvd remote has a key named subtitles press it, this key will
turn on any subtitles.
Wikipedia has a pretty good description of the Japanese story, for those of you who watched w/o subtitles.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babel_(2006_film)
I also attained a questionable copy without subtitles and I personally got a lot of info from watching it. The whole point of the movie was communication, and the lack there of. In a sense watching it without the subtitles contributed to the experience of the plot line. Maybe it just me but I had no prob understing most of it. The acting was phenomenal and therefore spoke more than language could have. Anyone that doesn’t beleive me, watch Amelie without subtitles, you will not miss a single thing. Great acting can really carry a plotline well.
I watched the whole thing without subtitles and everything was fine and kind of OK to follow, until the Japanese police inspectors arrived on the scene. I was thinking, “wow, did the dentist’s assistant report him for sexual assault on the girl” (remember, she walked in as his hand was between the girl’s legs! So I had to read up on the net about the plot. Will try and watch it again with subtitles.
My only conclusion while I was watching the film was that sexuality was a universal language – the Moroccan boy’s voyeurism and masturbation scene, the Japanese girl’s sexual exhibitionism and the Mexican nanny’s kissing scene at the wedding. But this was before I knew subtitles were produced!
Yep, I’m on the list, too. I haven’t finished watching it, but I agree with Igor.
Perhaps I’ll watch all subtitled films this way…
I just started it and tried to put the sub’s on but couldn’t. I thought it was for artistic effect too. Now I don’t know what to do. I can’t the the titles to come up anyway. Argg.
Heh. I’m in the ‘almost feel like I was robbed of 2 hrs boat’ I’m multilingual so I could follow the major plot lines but the subtitles would have been nice. I guess it is a testament to the filming that you could actually watch the entire film and still wonder if it was intended to be subtitled or not.
1hr33min with no subtitles. The first time I started watching it I got 10min into it and thought what the hell I can’t understand this. So I turned it off and couple days later started it again and got half of the way through it and thought man am I an idiot or what this probably had subtitles and can’t watch anymore unless it didn’t. Do they also subtitle the ’signing’?
well, made it to the japanese cops interrogating the girl, and i was like “ok, time to find subtitles SOMEWHERE” then i learned my copy came with the .srt file, and i restarted the film
I’m just glad my wife and I aren’t the only idiots who watched it without subtitles.
wow….haha this is too funny. i just watched basically the entre movie without subtitles and just questioned if it should have them or not. thank you everyone for making me feel less like an idot
now im just debating if i need to sit through the whole thing again from the begining or if i should just watch the end with the titles on……
Anyone know what application I use to open an .SRT file? I have a mac, and use Quicktime most often. I can view .avi files w/ no problem, but can’t seems to do anything with .SRT files…
Thanks.
When I saw it in the cinema, it had subtitles for the non-English bits.
Now that I have it on DVD, I watched it the other night with subtitles but I wish you could only have the subtitles for the non-English bits. Seems odd having to have subtitles up for the English bits too. Any ideas people?
Actually, ignore the above comment. I have just realised that if I click through until I reach Subtitle English 3 on my laptop, it only has the subtitles up for the non-English bits. Doh!
Same situation! Started watching, no subs, but the scenes are so expressive that it didn’t need subtitles – and this definitely added to the charm. It’s nice when small mistakes work out beautifully
It was like reading a book, your imagination creates the pictures. Here, your imagination creates the dialogue.
PS. Good movie, and will defo watch again with subs!
well…for d past 4-5 nights i’m confused whether it is a technique used by d director 4 us 2 concentrate more on d emotions of d characters rather than words….i hav an excellent copy of Babel but without eng subtitles 4 d other languages….so last night I resolved anyway to watch it widout subs….aftr about a minute of dialogue b/w d morrocans i switched 2 another movie….i decided 2 confirm d facts regardin d subs first…..and now here i am readin d plight of those who sat through d whole movie widout subs…..now i know there is a copy with eng subs…so i aint gonna watch d current copy.
TOTALLY CONFUSED ME!!!
Add me to this list. So, can anyone confirm whether the director has definitely released two “versions” of this movie? 1 with and without subtitles. Because, why is there even a copy floating around without subtitles?
Unless you’re a master linguist of course.
This is hilarious! I made it half way through before questioning whether all was as it is supposed to be.
I think the reason that it is floating around without subtitles is that who-ever made the, er, questionable copies did so of the movie only, without including subtitle information.
The only question left is whether to persevere or hunt down a complete copy…
I watched it w/o subtitles (i too was wondering for a while!) but resolved that this was how it was meant to be. I loved it. I’m so glad I watched it like this and feel now that subtitles would have spoilt the delicious universal striving to communicate and understand each other. Of course I didn’t understand everything – but I understood enough to “get” the movie. Beautifully shot.
Add me to the ‘watched without subtitles’ list.
I just kept waiting for something to happen in the asian plotline that would explain what was happening there. The other parts were easy enough to follow in their native languages. The actors and the direction were so expressive, tracking peoples faces so that you got a very good idea of what was going on.
If it wasn’t for the asian section, I never would have even questioned that I may have missed subtitles.
I should curse those nasty pirates for giving me a ‘bad’ copy, but I think I received a much more interesting viewing experience instead.
We watched it all without subs. Thought it was weird at the start then thought it was suppose to happen. Is it worth watching again with subs?
Got the film. Haven’t watched it yet. But i’ve seen clips of it and most of it is not in english. Not suprising considering that the story involves different things happening around the globe hence the different languages.
Ive tried to get subtitles for the film via the net. I have downloaded a bunch of them but every time I try and play the film, the subtitles do not appear. What do i do please.
Help. Thanks.
F**k! It has subtitles??! I knew it! And I sat through it all. So good without though. Gives it new meaning.
Perhaps the film defaults to playing without subtitles because this is the way it was meant to be seen?…
I’ve gone around telling everyone who’ll listen that Babel’s uniqueness is that it’s based on the langauge of emotion – that there are no subtitles – you understand what’s being intimated by gesture and inflection – the origin of communication. You also get to see the mistakes we’re all capable of making when denied the power of spoken communication that we all rely on.
For example, the scenes in the desert where members of the bus are frightened and intimidated by the village folk are true to life – they’re blinded by their prejudices and most are incapable of recognising what is actually going on. Life doesn’t come with subtitles. Why should a film that tries to teach us to be more observant (and more reasoning)?
Those parts of the movie that are spoken in an alien language are like the music that accompanied all the silent films – listen and you’ll understand.
I watched the movie without subtitles, as the whole thing was so expressive no need for that. And the sign language of japanese girls just confirmed somehow the point that it was meant to watch without subtitles and try to get communication through other means. I couldn’t get the japanese story so went through the subtitles, only to find they were mostly unemotional hardly relevant. Just linked the japanese part to other stories, but that could be figured out withouth language. Were really just an official talk and kind of “noise” irrelevant to the emotions expressed by the girl by non-verbal means. So really enjoyed the whole thing without subtitles and recommend it.
. And to enjoy that part of life.
But maybe because I am non-native speaker in english speaking country mingling with immigrants of different languages so I generally got used getting TV/movie/people/emotions from non-verbal sources
the movie was ONLY released with subtitles and never even considered to be shown without. regardless of the fact that the emotions the characters portray happen to tell a story, much of the symbolism can be found in much of the dialogue. the only people who should even consider watching it without any subtitles is someone who is fluent in english, spanish, marocain, japonese AND SIGN LANGUAGE. otherwise it would just be wasting your time.
Haha, I watched Babel two whole times before finding out it was meant to have subtitles, and I only understand English. It works reasonably well without them. Reading the plot on Wikipedia fills the gaps. There was only one part I really didn’t have a clue about, and that was who the man was who talked to the Japanese girl. I had no idea it was a detective.
I don’t feel like an idiot. It’s not my fault, and I enjoyed the film anyway, so it wasn’t a waste of time. Maybe one day I will bother watching it with subtitles.
I just finished watching Babel. The movie was amazing – acting, casting, setting, score, etc. I watched it without subtitles and understood the movie perfectly well. The deaf teen’s alienation, feelings of inadequacy, growing pains, lonliness, desperation, betrayal and repeated rejections hit you like a sledgehammer. The absence of a Mother, the detective badges and the affluent lifestyle (complete with big game hunting pictures on display) continue the hammering. Watching Babel is a fantastic emotional release. If I pick up a few new plot points while watching a different movie I’ll call “Babel with Sub-Titles” then hooray for me. As for Wikipedia, they miss a few major plot points by focusing simply on the negativity. Such is life.
My wife and i watched the movie last night, it got the better of us and we had to look whether it was supposed to be captioned or no… one of us was wrong, looks like i am cleaning the bathroom this week.
I played the DVD almost all the way through and there were subtitles. Eventually, toward the end, I got tired and turned it off, right before Brad Pitt’s wife got evacuated from the village. The next morning I put it on again at that point, and got to the final scene in Japan, where the detective talks to the girl’s father. There were no subtitles. I thought it was on purpose, as you could pick up words from their conversation, like “Veranda”, “Rifle”, etc. Curious to know exactly what they said, I came here. Weirdly if you select a scene from the DVD on a fresh play it won’t put on subtitles.
Damn it, aditya. “d” is not a word. Ellipses really aren’t THAT cool. And it takes more effort to find the number 2 than it does to type “to”!
Anyhow, I also watched the entire movie without subs, and I don’t regret that. Other than the fact that her mother committed suicide, and the reason why the officers wanted to talk with her father, I was able to pick up on the Japanese subplot along with the rest of the movie. What I took from the movie was that people are people despite language and culture differences. We all have the same problems and emotions. The sooner we realize that, the better off we’ll all be.