Apparently I’m not the only translator with head troubles lately…
Observing translators at ceremonies of Marseille film festival in Odessa proves I’m not the only one having problems with head clarity:
- one of them did not recognize the word “cinéma numérique” (digital movies) which lead to a rather stupid “limeric movies” (ridiculous with the rest of the phrase saying it will transform the future of the film industry);
- the other said Spring 2010 instead of Spring 2011 which was kinda important since the event in question did not happen yet and in the next phrase we were invited to it! >:-)
I’m not even speaking about the ridiculous 1975 as the year of founding the Marseille motion picture factory (which later was betrayed by a book to 100 years of it… hell, brothers Lumière started filming there in XIX century!).
What’s worse, I see again that ability to smile sweetly and talk smoothly even if nonsense is more important in this occupation than the actual professionalism…
No, they weren’t totally bad but still with the vice-mayor of Marseille & ambassador of France who came basically to discuss the two cities relations with our mayor… I know we do have better professionals in the city!
And I’m not speaking about myself, my French being out of use for years: I could perfectly understand the delegation at the ceremonies, but the first movie about simple workers in a village of Marseille “Marius et Jeanette” I couldn’t understand a word and had to read the subtitles, while the second one about the childhood of Marcel Pagnol whose name this festival bears “Castle of my mother” was using more academic pronunciation and I only checked the subtitles occasionally. The subtitles were good mostly with only a few sad translations reversing the sense or rendering the phrase senseless that I noticed.
