No More Dubbing Please

I take my daughter to watch "Brave" today at Cinestar, Dusseldorf.  Like many foreigners who try to go the movies here, I was surprised to discover that all films are dubbed in Germany.  Sometimes Swiss or Austrian films are dubbed into german German.  Cinestar is the only movie theater  that regularly has a few movies playing in what is called OV or OmU which is German for original version.  Alas, "Brave" is called "Merida" and will not be in English.  Children's movies in OV are even rarer than adult movies in OV.  To the theater's credit, this Summer they played "Ice Age 4" in English and 3D along with the dubbed versions.

Smaller theaters in Dusseldorf will have films in OmU but this is hit or miss.  I just never know which film will be shown, if at all in OV.  Sometimes I get excited if I see the OmU sign first and then find out the original language is Norwegian, though my Norwegian acquaintances rejoice.  Theaters such as the Bambi in Klosterstrasse, the Metropol in Brunnerstrasse or Souterrain in the Cafe Muggel at the Dominikanerstrasse will have foreign film in their original languages though they may not always be English.

Cinestar has been kind enough to answer my questions and complaints over the years but have changed nothing.  I was informed that the individual theater has no control over which reel they receive in OmU and which reel not.  I was extremely disappointed to miss "Captain America" as it was only shown in German.  I pointed out the the manager that to watch Captain American dispatching Nazis while speaking German was weird at best and laughable at worst, given that the hero is already wearing tights.  I got shrugs and sorries.

Some enthusiastic Germans have informed me that I live in Germany and that Germany is a German speaking country, therefore they wish to see their films in German.  I responded that if that is the case then why are they watching American movies like "Captain America" at all instead of watching German films, after all, we are in fact, yes, in Germany.

45 minutes away is The Netherlands.  The charming people there have the wonderful habit of subtitling everything, even tv shows, which means that "House" got to keep his sense of humor, such as it was.  Subtitling has the added advantage of letting us interpret the translation on a deeper level.  By this I mean that we can still hear the original actors and presumably the intentions of the director in choosing these actors.  "Como Agua para Chocolate" or "Life of Brian" are almost unrecognizable dubbed.

Then we come to the hateful habit of using the same voice actor for the foreign actor over and over.  I don't know if anyone else has noticed but actors like Meryl Streep, Robert de Niro or even Liv Tyler will modulate their voice, change tone, pitch and even accent for different roles.  This is something that is often beyond the talents of these voice actors who often seem to play Meryl Streep playing Julia Childs as opposed to the concept of Meryl Streep disappearing and Julia Childs appearing.  In short, German dubbing leaves me with the feeling that I am watching the same movie over and over again because the voices are always the same.