Features: Magazine | Literary Review | Life | Metro Plus | Open Page | Education Plus | Book Review | Business | SciTech | Entertainment | Young World | Property Plus | Quest | Folio |

Harry speaks Tamil!

English films dubbed in Tamil find many takers in Pondicherry

ON PUBLIC DEMAND The dubbed version PHOTO: T. SINGARAVELOU

Two theatres in Pondicherry screened the latest Harry Potter movie "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire", but in Tamil. Though the film was targeted at the large number of Tamil-speaking people, there were a few who preferred to watch it in English but had to watch the Tamil-version out of interest. Sri Raman Theatre saw a few foreign tourists enquiring about the film. They also watched it despite not being able to understand the dialogues.

" We did try to get the English version at least in the last week but the distributors were unable to arrange it. Since most people preferred the Tamil version we went with it," said Vijayasegar, proprietor, Sri Raman Theatre on Anna Salai, which ran the film - Harry Potterum Maaya Koppaiyum - for three weeks.

The Tamil-version was also screened in Muruga theatre. Most English films (dubbed version) run for 3 to 4 weeks in Pondicherry but this one didn't do well due to the rains. "We can watch such films with our family. And we can follow the dialogues only when it is in Tamil. We have already watched it at home," said Krishnaveni, Usha and Umamaheswari.

Engineering students, Hemachandran and Karthik, said they didn't mind watching the movie in Tamil because they were more interested in the techniques, digital effects and the actors. They love Harry Potter and Hermione. In the recent past, there haven't been many screenings of English or Hindi movies in Pondicherry since people seem to prefer films in Tamil. "Most of the time we screen both versions of a film in two of our theatres. But it has been quite some time since we did that. In Pondicherry, we don't have a fixed audience for English and Hindi movies. They would rather watch them on DVD," said Rajarajan, executive director, Ananda Theatre. "Though the rate for both versions is the same, we choose Tamil on public demand. The last time we had an English film was three years back. It was a Jackie Chan film. Now we are trying to bring a Hindi film in Hindi for the north Indian audience," says M. R. Palanisamy, proprietor, Muruga Theatre.

But some people find the dubbed versions amusing. "The dialogue sounds funny and sometimes the meaning completely changes," said Vallikannan. "The names of the characters are also sometimes Indianised. For instance, in `Jurassic Park', we had names like Kamakshi," pointed out Sathish. "From 1991 we have been getting only the dubbed version. So I have stopped watching English films. I cannot stand the Tamil dialogue," said Raja.

Another youngster Chandrakanth suggested that it would be better to have English films with Tamil subtitles or the dubbed version with English subtitles for those who don't know Tamil.

DEEPA H. RAMAKRISHNAN

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail