Out of Sync

‘Syncronisiert’? Pah, don’t make me laugh. This is about as in sync as the couple from Blue Valentine trying to have sex. I remember the excruciatingly awkward unease of watching that scene, but it wasn’t quite as bad as watching dubbed films in German.

I just got back from spending the year in Dresden, a small, boho city of vegan cafes and independent cinemas just a couple of hours drive from Berlin. Sounds lovely, I know, and it was, kind of. But the cultural vandalism that goes on here on a daily basis is enough to make a film lover give up going to the pictures.

The reason is that films in Germany are almost always ‘synchronisiert’, or dubbed. The German word for it implies a crafty slotting of sound to image that overstates the actual ‘synchrony’ of the end product. I much prefer the English term. Dub. There’s an onomatopoeic quality to it, almost like a thudding of one thing being dumped on another, which of course is exactly what we’re talking about here.

That’s not to say that this isn’t serious business. The German dubbing market is the largest in Europe and it turned over a healthy €87.25 million in 2009, according to iSFF, a Berlin-based film and TV institute. This may be down to sheer demand. We look at Sweden, Finland and other relatively small European countries and think of them as bespectacled intellects worthy of a pat on the back, but could it just be that they are too niche to make the hassle worthwhile? Germany is massive. They have the money and the ratings to afford dubbing, and anyone there will tell you that it’s of the highest quality.

But what is high quality dubbing? It’s all about attention to detail and consistency, which is why every actor has his or her own ‘Feststimme’, or regular voice. Up until the year 2010, an annual awards ceremony was held to give these voices a face and a bit of credit. German newspaper Spiegel Online called it the ‘Oscars of Dubbing’. But it’s been three years since these faceless celebrities last talked their way down that red carpet. Maybe their limelight was about as short lived as that of Ted Williams, the youtube hit with the golden voice. So could this be dubbing on the out?

I hope so. And not out of snobbery, although I was accused of that on the several occasions I ended up standing in a huff outside the cinema in Dresden. The problem is that even the most professional dubbing still looks crap. I tried to watch Django Unchained and had to leave the cinema for fear that I would jump up waving my fists and start screaming ‘NO! LEO JUST DOESN’T SOUND LIKE THAT! NO OWN FROM THE DEEP SOUTH SOUNDS LIKE THAT!’ Perhaps the Italians or the Spaniards would have put up with such an emotional outburst, but in Germany I’d have been doing nothing more valiant than causing a disturbance.

Perhaps it’s different if you’ve grown up with it all your life. It might seem like I’m overreacting. Why can’t I just ignore it? Why do I have to storm out of the cinema? Are loaded words like ‘vandalism’ and ‘deceit’ really necessary? Well, in short, yes. When I pay for that movie stub I want to get lost for the evening; dive into a world of characters that I can believe in. And there’s already enough bullshit in Hollywood plot lines as it is without me having to quietly swallow the added fact that Amelie now speaks fluent Deutsch.

Voice actors of the world, there’s no talking your way out of this one. I just won’t buy it.