Human Nature (Michel Gondry, 2001)

[PfR73]

Charlie Kaufman is my favorite screenwriter, but until last night I had never seen Human Nature. While it does not have the impact of his other films, I still found it very funny.

I had been initially considering importing the Japanese Blu-Ray but the DVDCompare review stated it was missing English subtitles for a section where Peter Dinklage speaks French.

I rented the old US DVD from my local video store, but found that it also had no subtitles for this scene. Even when I turned on the HOH English subtitles, the French was not translated. After doing some research, I found out that Dinklage's character is quoting André Malraux's Man's Fate. It seems like part of the point of Dinklage speaking French is that:

SpoilerShow

Miranda Otto's "French" character is not actually French, so when someone spouts a long string of French at her, the only response she can come up with is "Oui."

Which can work somewhat, even if the viewer doesn't know what Dinklage is saying, but I could also see the joke working, perhaps better, if the viewer does know what he's saying.

Does anyone know if this dialogue was intended to be subtitled, whether it was in the theatrical release or on any other DVD release? The dialogue is not in the early draft hosted at Being Charlie Kaufman, so that didn't help me determine whether it was intended to be translated or not.

[beamish13]

This is my favourite Gondry film. Howlingly funny and anchored by absolutely tremendous performances.