Rasmenia

“Against the disease of writing one must take special precautions, since it is a dangerous and contagious disease.” 

-Peter Abelard

It recently occurred to me that I haven’t made fun of any French weirdness in quite a while. I mean, it’s been like, 2 whole blog posts ago. It’s not that I’d stopped noticing, having grown accustomed & become part of the weirdness. Okay, okay… I may have become a wee part of the weirdness, but that doesn’t mean I don’t take notice of it.

One thing that has been a constantly baffling source of amusement here is the French titles for American movies. This isn’t something confounding only to Americans, either. There are plenty of savvy French movie goers who understand the absurdity & hilarity of the French titles, but those bizarre titles keep showing up, anyway.

It often seems that there is no rhyme or reason to it. After seeing countless movie posters, TV spots & theater signs, there is no discernible pattern to this madness. Believe me, I’ve tried to make sense of it. I can’t do it.

Sometimes, they keep the original English title. However, there are many cases where this is impossible, as the English title is an idiomatic phrase that makes no sense in French & has no equivalent, creating the need for a new, hilarious French title.

The Crystal Trap	58 Minutes to Live
A Day in Hell	Return to Hell

What amuses me most about the French posters for the Die Hard franchise is, the phrase “Die Hard” gets larger with each poster. I think that’s a good sign since “A Good Day to Die Hard,” the 5th movie in the series will be called: Belle Journée Pour Mourir. That translates to a Beautiful Day to Die, so, hey… they’re getting better.

Other times, the title is still in English, but has just been changed to some other English words that have nothing to do with the original title.

You probably already figured out that the first one is “The Hangover.” This is one of the most ridiculous French titles I’ve ever seen. In spite of the fact that there is a French expression for a hangover (gueule de bois) this movie was retitled in a way to associate it with the 1998 movie, Very Bad Things. The two movies are completely unrelated, but both are about a group of guys who go to Vegas before one of them gets married.

If you’re lucky, you haven’t seen the second movie, titled “Guess Who?” in the States, is a shitty remake of the 1967 Spencer Tracy/Sidney Poitier classic, “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.” Evidently, when they released it in France, they cut right to the point & said, “Fuck guessing. It’s a black guy & a white guy.” Which, to be fair, is often enough to let ticket buyers know they’re in for some wacky hijinks.

As we all know, sex sells, which is why there are several instances of movie titles getting a little bit of sexing up for French audiences.

No Strings Attached

Step Up

Cruel Intentions

My favorite is the sexing up of “Cruel Intentions”, which most people know is a horrible, young 90′s American version of “Les Liaisons Dangereuses,” a French novel written by an old-timey French guy named Pierre Choderlos de Laclos. Yeah, sometimes they inexplicably give weird, sexy titles to their own stories.

It doesn’t happen very often, but some of the biggest laughs come when the French & American posters seem to be for two very different movies… even though once you hit “play,” you still get the same boring shit.

Before the sexy Photoshop

The Harvests of Fire

Sometimes, the new & improved French titles just like to ask questions.

Is There a Cop to Save the Queen?	Is There a Cop to Save the President?
Is There a Cop to Save Hollywood?	Is There a Pilot in the Plane?

The inquisitive title isn’t just for zany comedies, either. It also works for cheesy horror flicks.

Vampire? Did You Say Vampire?

The recent remake of Fright Night didn’t get this clever title. It kept the same title as the American release, which is a good example of the fact that this is something that seems to happening a bit less in recent years. However, I kind of feel like they should have changed the title to “106 Minutes of Colin Farrell in a Wife Beater.”

You know, to sell more tickets.

And speaking of horror movies…

The Claws of the Night

The Teeth of the Sea

One thing that I see a lot of is a title that’s been changed & effectively gets the point across, but just sounds dull & doesn’t stand out as a unique title.

My Best Friends

Friends Forever

The Escapees

To be fair, that Adam Sandler nonsense where he filmed himself hanging out with his friends could have been called anything & it would still be horrible. And though it won’t surprise anyone, it may still be worth mentioning that the French DVD cover for “Bridesmaids” does state that the movie is a “feminine Very Bad Trip.”

There are the movie titles that in my mind, are amusing, but seem a bit misleading.

The Kites of Kabul

Just think of all those people sitting in the theater, expecting to see a nice movie about kites who ended up sitting through 2 hours of people doing things & talking about stuff.

Animal House

Hey! It’s a movie about an American college! Probably all American colleges are like the one in this movie. As you likely already know, anything you want to learn about another culture can be learned from watching movies. Sure, go ahead & laugh, but just like many Americans, thousands of French people watch American movies & believe those things to be an accurate representation of our lives.

Then again, it probably isn’t so far-fetched.

There are many, many more, but that’s enough for now. You get the idea. Besides, all of these is really nothing compared to the French titles of some American TV shows.

I’ll get to that later.

We climbed aboard the bus to Delphi & took a gander at the other passengers. A few elderly couples, a few 40 or 50-somethings. A woman with her nose in a book & one couple with a little boy. All together, there was only about 20 of us in the group.

“We lucked out,” Olivier said. “The bus isn’t even half-full & there’s only one little kid, who doesn’t seem annoying.”

Me & my husband, we’re just not kid people. I watched the little boy, who leaned across the aisle toward his father & said, “Excuse me, Dad, but why are there no buses that fly?”

I nodded, satisfied. “Yeah, I think we’re good.”

The door closed. The tour guide introduced herself. It would be a 3-hour trip to Delphi, where we would see the archeological site, then the museum, then lunch.

Our guide spent the 3 hours recounting various tales from Greek history; several Greek myths relating to Apollo & to the various sites & cities that we passed on our way to Delphi.

“… then Apollo killed the dragon Python, who lived at the center of the Earth and guarded the stone – the navel of the Earth…”

“… Apollo had many lovers, one of the most famous of his lovers was the prophetess Cassandra…”

“… the Greek messenger, Pheidippides, ran for 240km to announce the victory over the Persians at the Battle of Marathon, but it was far… he was wearing all of his armor, so he got really hot and tired, then he dropped dead. That’s why we call this big race a ‘marathon,’ for this messenger who dropped dead.”

“I see some of you falling asleep. I will stop talking. After I tell you one more story…”

“Ok… just one more story, then I let you sleep.”

“… and that’s why I do not really like this movie, ’300′.”

Of course, during these kind of touristy excursions, there is always that one big nerd, leaning forward in their seat, listening intently to every word, nodding along & commenting to the person next to them.

I should tell you that this big nerd was me. When people were falling asleep during the stories, I was offended. When someone began chatting, disrupting my listening enjoyment, I did the half-turn in my seat, with the disapproving look.

It went like this until we arrived at Delphi. Our guide showed us around the various points of interest at the site, one of which was the restored Athenian Treasury:

She took us to Omphalos – the stone that marks the “navel of the Earth”.

You can imagine how relieved we were to see that Python's stone is still there.

While continuing to entertain us with stories of Greek mythology, our guide led us to the ruins of the Temple of Apollo before leaving us to run amok on our own for an hour, at which time we would meet back up for a quick trip through the little museum.

Our guide zoomed us through the Delphi Museum. It’s now a rapidly spinning blur of ancient statues, myths & camera clicks.

The bus then took us to a nearby hotel where lunch was waiting for us. Seating was limited to just a few tables in the corner of the dining room, so everyone had lunch with single-serving friends. Luckily, we ended up with a cool couple from Santa Barbara. Like the trip through the museum, food arrived quickly – a little too quickly. We were still eating when the waiters brought each of us an orange. Our guide announced, “Ok! Have your dessert, visit the bathroom & back on the bus in 10 minutes.”

All around us, tourists were peeling fruit & running off to the bathroom; shoving orange wedges into their face & entire oranges into their pockets & bags.

Before we knew it, we were on our way back to Athens. Everyone fell victim to that after-lunch sleepiness, which was only made worse by the hum of the bus. Even our guide, who had been so talkative, began to quiet down. For most of the 3-hour return trip, it was nap time.

The passengers stirred as we approached Athens. As we all came back to life, our guide began to speak once again. We rode past the Athens Olympic Stadium, which was built for the 2004 Summer Olympic games.

“… and we built many, many things for these games… things that cost so much money to our country…”

“… these games had nothing to do with the Olympic tradition, when all countries at war would stop fighting, making peace during the games. Now the fighting continues and no one remembers these glorious games of the past…”

“… so much money was spent, now we are very disappointed, in a terrible debt… in a terrible crisis…”

The tone had taken a somber turn. All the passengers were silent. No more noses in books, no more chatting with neighbors. Just a mostly empty bus of American tourists, sitting motionless.

Our bus slowed down as we approached a toll area, where several people were assembled, holding up picket signs. Since Olivier & I don’t speak or read Greek, we had no idea why these people were striking.

“… there is often people on strike because they are disappointed with the government right now. I don’t blame them.”

“Our Prime Minister George Papandreou has raised our retirement age so many of us are very angry about this…”

“… so that is why we sometimes have problems with our neighbors in Turkey, though it is calm now…”

“… and we have spent money for weapons… we have been good clients when it comes to buying some weapons…”

Olivier & I looked at one another. “Wow,” he said, “these people are angry.”

“Well, sure,” I said. “They have every right to be.” I looked around at the other Americans, looking awkward & uncomfortable. We’re just not used to this kind of thing. If some tour guide at Disneyland, or one of our national parks started going off on a tirade about the government, or spouting opinions on international conflicts, there would likely be a complaint & that tour guide would probably lose their job.

As I looked around, I did laugh a little bit. Not at the tour guide, but at all of the uncomfortable tourists, squirming in their seats. A (literally) captive audience, getting first-hand information on what it’s really like for other people in far away places.

It’s a pity that more guided tours aren’t like this.