No subtitles, but even worse ...

[Sven Koerber]

Apart from subtitles or original dialogue there may be a third solution:
Especially here in Germany (and Italy, I heared) movies rarely come into the
bigger cinemas with subtitles, but they get synchronized.

The "big" movies (mostly from Hollywood) will be synchronized by quite
famous German actors who often manage to get the feeling of the original
voices transported into another language, which doesn't distract the
viewer's eye.

But the problem with not so famous movies like all the movies not comming
from one of the big Hollywood studios is that "less talented" actors get to
speak the dialogues.

You wouldn't believe, but badly synchronized dialogues really can destroy
the whole reception of a rather good movie; perhaps this is one reason why
elsewhere highly regarded movies get bad reviews here. I remember an old
Chinese drama, where only one German speaker with heavy dialect had to speak
all the voices of the movie (even the women!), and I think he had to make
all the sound effects himself too, because apparently the whole original
sound was cut off to synchronize the movie. This turned the drama into a
comedy.

Only little theaters show movies with their original sound and subtitles,
but a little screen and the original sound-impression is far better than a
big screen with THXed sound dilemma...