Netflix is currently showing the movie “The Guilty” starring Jake Gyllenhaal and directed by Antoine Fuqua, a “remake” of the Danish movie of the same name that was shown in 2018 and was a great success, and Denmark presented it to represent it in the International Film Department of the Oscars, but it did not Reach the final list.
This is not the first time that Hollywood has adapted films from other countries and re-presented them in English with new directors and famous actors, but what is the reason behind that?
The American public and the translation crisis
In 2019, when "Parasite" won the Oscar for Best Picture;
Electronic platforms rushed to try to buy it and display it, but a major crisis arose, which was the refusal of American viewers to watch the movie in the South Korean language, accompanied by English subtitles, which led to its dubbing in the end.
In fact, subtitled films are not very popular in the United States. The audience that exports their subtitled films to almost every country in the world refuses to be invaded by foreign culture, or at least is more lazy than that, and those who watch foreign films in America are only the educated class who tend to to get to know the other.
In addition to dubbing, Hollywood studios also resort to the process of re-production or "remake", which is the process of creating a new version with American actors, with changes in the script to suit the new environment of events.
But these films rarely succeed, compared to the success of the original works, and many explanations were given in that, the most important of which is the interference of Hollywood studios in the scenarios of the works to a degree that disturbs their context, as happened in the movie “Nightwatch” presented by the same director Ole Burndal in its Danish and American versions. , but the second failed due to the changes that occurred in it.
These American films also lack the originality that was the reason for the success of many works in their first language, by being far from the culture and places in which the events took place.
The comet is a new episode of failure
The Danish film "The Guilty" was distinguished by a very tight and distinctive scenario, as its events took place - during only an hour and a half - in the room of the recipient of emergency calls from the police, where we get to know the police officer, "Azgar", who is punished for a mistake he made during his service, and is sent to work in this department until End of investigations and trial, which will take place the next day.
But on his last day at this job, he receives a call from a terrified woman, who understands that she has been kidnapped, and that her children are alone in the house and one of them is sick, so he begins to make his phone calls to his co-workers with the aim of finding out the location of the woman, and determining her home, to save her children, and during this short period he has to He helps the family while he is handcuffed and unable to do anything but sporadic calls with the mother and her baby.
The film adhered to only one place during the events without going out with the cameras to any place other than the room in which the officer is considered a prisoner of his fears, as well as the time on the screen was the same time period in the film, which made the viewer feel very identifiable with the events, and excitement and emotion all the time.
But the American version mitigated this excitement by filming some scenes outside the room, where his hero Julie Bailo was leaving with his imagination, imagining the difficulties that the woman or her children are going through, which broke the barrier of isolation and restrictions imposed on the officer and his viewers as well.
Also, one of the most important reasons for the success of the movie “The Guilty” in its Danish version is the social content that is revealed towards the end, when knowing the nature of the mistake made by the officer “Azgar”, which reveals part of the intolerance of Danish society against some of its groups, but the American movie used the same mistake In a less dramatic way, and without linking to already sensational issues in American society such as the issue of racial intolerance that already exist, and are very hot at the moment, the film presented an even watered-down version of lived reality.
Jake Gyllenhaal's performance in the title role is the best of this movie in fact. The American actor with great talent was able to prove his worth in many previous works, and here he presents an excellent representation, in a different way from the performance of the Danish actor Jacob Cedergreen, where Gyllenhaal tended to use his facial features. And the expression using his body clearly, unlike his colleague who previously presented the role.
In fact, had it not been for the previous really good movie, and the success that it achieved and made it reach a large number of film critics and audiences, the movie “The Guilty” would have passed well as one of the thrillers this year (2021), and like any of the works that Netflix shows on an ongoing basis, do not get stuck in The minds of the masses only last for a month or more, and gain their views on the stage because of the names of their actors, and then become forgotten.