ON VOIT MIDI A SA PORTE
Text quoted from: http://www.cannes-fest.com/2001/film_quelleheure.htm(
30 Jul.2001)
"On ne doit pas tuer un être vivant pendant 49 jours..."
Certes, ce dernier opus de TML, est symboliquement et cinématographiquement
moins fort que The Hole, par exemple.
Cependant, ce qu'il perd en originalité, il le gagne en charme et en rythme.
Le tempo* est d'ailleurs primoridal sur ce film qui scrute le temps qui passe.
Mais pas seulement. Obsédé par ses thèmes - la promiscuité,
l'incommunicabilité, la solitude - le cinéaste made in Taiwan continue son
observation des grandes villes, des petits appartements, de ces cases à urnes
funéraires qui se superposent, de ces gens qui s'entassent dans le métro.
Cette mythologie urbaine peuplée de cafards et remplie* de poubelles, rend
l'espace exigu et opressant. Tout débute avec un long plan séquence sur un
vieux monsieur; il sera le souvenir qui soutient l'intrigue. Il est seul,
face à une mort dont on porte le deuil - décidément l'obsession de l'année.
Cela n'empêche pas TML de placer des notes d'humour, des absurdités drôles,
des petits détails inattendus, espiègles, qui nous font sursauter comme le
carillon ponctue l'écoulement du temps à chaque heure. Dans cette longue
insomnie avec décalage horaire, le réalisateur divise par chapitres* symétriques
les trois destins qui se croisent* (la mère, l'expatriée, le fils) : ivresse,
absence, sexualité, vol...
cette synchronicité tryptique des actes marque le poids de la chronologie tout
au long du film. Le lien entre les deux célibataires est d'ailleurs symbolisé
par l'heure et les horloges. TML va jusqu'au bout de ce délire allégorique
en mettant Taiwan à l'heure de Paris. Paradoxalement, son héros va
ainsi découvrir la France à travers un film et du vin tandis que la touriste aura
le plus grand mal à s'intégrer, malgré une expérience vécue et non virtuelle.
On appréciera l'hommage appuyé à Trufault*, liaison et lésion irréelles
entre les deux êtres.
Cette oeuvre discrète n'en est pas moins attachante, comme les personnages,
et notamment le toujours très beau Hsiao Kang. Le cadre et l'image sont
splendides. Ce n'est pas les 400 coups. Mais ces 12 coups de minuit suffisent
non pas à réveiller un mort, mais plutôt à nous maintenir éveillé devant
tant de sensibilité, et de fatalité face à cette éternité interdite.
* The spelling of these words has been corrected from the original text
TIME AFTER TIME
"One shall not kill a living being for 49 days..."
Indeed, symbolically and cinematographically speaking, this last TML opus
is not as intense as The Hole for instance. However, what is lost in originality
is gained in charm and rhythm. The concept of tempo is all-important in this movie
that scrutinizes the passing of time. But not only that. The "made in Taiwan"
film maker is obsessed by his subjects (promiscuity, impossibility to communicate,
loneliness) and keeps observing big cities, small apartments, cinerary urns
piling up on top of one another and the subway crammed with people. This urban
tale populated by cockroaches and full of garbage bins gives a tight and oppressing
feeling to the surrounding space. It all starts with a long sequence showing an
old man. His memory will sustain the plot. He is alone, faced with a death that
is already being mourned - clearly this year's obsession. It doesn't
keep TML from placing humoristic touches, amusing absurdities, small unexpected
and mischievous details that surprise us as the toll marking the passing of time
each hour. In this long insomnia with jetlag, the director divides the three crossing
destinies of the mother, the expatriate and the son in symmetric chapters: drunkenness,
absence, sexuality, theft...
This triple synchronicity of acts underlines the weight of chronology throughout
the movie. As a matter of fact, time and clocks are the symbol of a link between
the two unmarried characters. TML goes all the way in this allegoric delirium
by setting Taiwan to Paris time. Paradoxically, his hero will then
discover France through wine and a movie while the tourist will have a very hard
time adapting, in spite of a live -and not virtual- experience. You will enjoy
a tribute to Trufault, an unreal liaison and lesion between the
two people.
This discrete work is nevertheless just as compelling as its characters, especially
the always handsome Hsiao Kang. The setting and images are beautiful. This is
not The 400 Blows, but though TML's 12 strokes of midnight do not to wake
up the dead, they are sufficient to keep us awake before so much sensibility and
fatality facing this forbidden eternity.
Discussion of terminology and resources used for
this translation:
On
voit Midi à sa porte http://french.about.com/homework/french/library/express/blex_proverb.htm
( 30 Jul. 2001)
This American site provides a list of English expressions with their French
equivalents. The French expression "Chacun voit midi a sa porte" is translated
by "To each his own". However, In our French text, this expression is mainly
used because it refers to time, a key topic in the movie. This is why it seems
more appropriate to keep the time reference with another English expression
even if it is not semantically equivalent to the French expression originally
used.
ce dernier opus
http://64.154.21.227/news2000/feb00/news50228.html
( 30 Jul. 2001), the ABC television news site uses the
expression "the last opus" in a cultural context of advertising launch, which
is very similar to our context.
urne funéraire: http://www.afif.asso.fr/francais/conseils/conseil41.html
( 30 Jul. 2001)
The "Association Française d'Information Funéraire" web site provides a lexicon
of terms related to death and funerals along with their translations in English
and German.
Reliability: "Les informations et les conseils sont donnés sous réserve d'erreur
involontaire ou d'omission."
porte
le deuil: see complete search here
On
http://www.dnd.ca/admfincs/subjects/qr_o/vol1/ch017_e.asp(
30 Jul. 2001) , a page of the Government of Canada Web site, we read "an officer
or chief warrant officer shall wear mourning while taking part in service funerals"
as a translation of "un officier ou adjudant-chef porte le deuil lorsqu'il participe
à des funérailles". Therefore, "to wear mourning" seems to be an accurate and
official translation of the French expression "porter le deuil". A search on
"wear mourning" retrieves American and British sites using this expression.
However, it seems to be used in a quite formal and official context, as opposed
to "mourn", more commonly used in most situations. The syntactic form of the
sentence to translate has to be considered too, as the two expressions are not
equivalent: "to wear mourning" is a verb form, and "mourning" is a gerundive.
The actual expression used here is "porter le deuil de quelque chose"
which is in fact translated in English by "to mourn something".
ivresse
On the Government of Canada web site http://www.dnd.ca/eng/archive/1999/aug99/11aug99CL1_n_e.htm
( 30 Jul. 2001) "ivresse" is tranlated by drunkenness, or
impaired driving in the specific case of what would be "ivresse au volant" in
French.
The more generic term "drunkenness" applies to our situation.
en mettant Taiwan à l'heure
de Paris
On http://www.flyana.com/jetlag.html
( 30 Jul. 2001) we read "Set your watch to the local
time" used in a general touristic context, and on
http://www.mail-archive.com/linux-kernel@vger.rutgers.edu/2000-month-08/msg02601.html
( 30 Jul. 2001)we see "Setting the clock at boot time
... " used in a more technical computer science context.
A more thorough search on "set clock at" and "set clock to" retrieves several
occurences of "set clock to" (e.g. http://www.simtel.net/pub/pd/42282.shtml
( 1 Jul. 2001) or http://www.mitre.org/research/cots/TEST.html
( 30 Jul. 2001)) and none of "set time at". "Set time to"
turns out to be more commonly used, and as the other expression appears in a
technical context, it might be specific to the situation it was used in.
Paradoxallement
On http://www.climateark.org/articles/2000/4th/hotairba.htm
( 30 Jul. 2001), we can read in an article published in the
British Newspaper The Guardian: "The hot air balloon: Paradoxically, such a
failure of the climate change talks is the best chance to get the issue noticed..."
which shows that "Paradoxically" is a correct translation for "Paradoxallement".
hommage appuyé:
The adjectives most commonly associated with tribute are: international,
worldwide, unofficial, late, online, etc. but nothing
really corresponds to "appuyé". It seems that in English, a tribute already
conveys the notion of something important, and doesn't need an adjective to
underline it. Therefore, "hommage appuyé" can be translated as "tribute"
lésion
http://eurodic.ip.lu/cgi-bin/edicbin/EuroDicWWW.pl
( 30 Jul. 2001)
lésion= lesion, overreaching
On English and American sites as well as on French sites, "lésion/lesion" is
used as a medical term, and is accompanied by a specific jargon. In both languages,
it implicitely refers to something that is "broken" or in bad condition, and
can be kept in the translation to convey the same idea.
Les 400 coups
http://www.art2u.com/movies/Truffaut.html
*( 30 Jul. 2001) Shows that the title of Trufault's movie
"Les 400 coups" has been translated in English as "The 400 Blows"
It is therefore difficult to keep the play on words "400 coups/12 coups de minuit"
as English has a different translation for each case (blow/strike).
* The name of the film maker is not spelled correctly on this site, but I kept
the mistake to make it possible to copy and paste the link.
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July 2001
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