I don`t know if there are any good sides to synchronized movies. Honestly, name one and I`ll give you a lollipop. And mind you, I am talking about movies. Not cartoons. Movies. For grown-ups. Not frigging teletubbies (come to think of it, teletubbies sound the same in every langugage. I mean, how do you translate “ugha-ugha?“).

In my opinion, the synchronized movies have something to do with the cultural empirealism. Languages are all struggling to be first in line and since movies are widely consumed by the broader audience, the powers that be are changing the audio tracks, all in the name of the country. And the holy father.

But seriously, just what does synchronization mean for a movie? And is it really so insignificant and at the same time so necessary that everybody is doing it?

The silent movies were easy. They just swapped the cards. The sound movies are a little difficult, since you have to hire actors, translators, hope to get the right ones so that Bruce Willis does not sound like Doris Day and so forth. But isn`t adjusting the voice of the actor similar to making your own movie? Seriously, what is the difference if Sharon Stone`s voice sounds like Nataša Barbara Gračner or if the role of Sharon Stone IS played entirely by Nataša? Do the movie people really think that it`s not that big of a deal and that the movie still holds some charm and appeal to the public?

Don`t get me wrong, I am not for English uber alle. I wanna hear a korean movie in korean, russian movie in russian and slovenian movie in slovene. What I don`t want is Jean Reno dubbed with some friggin english guy, seeing Reno`s lips move out of synch. That mon amis (lips move two seconds after the phrase is spoken), I do not want.

I also do not want to see the change in style of the character`s voice. It`s bad enough with subtitles (I remember in “No man`s land” where Đuro was cursing his ass off in serbo-croatian and the subtitles read “Damn“), but doing a voice-over, for me, kills a movie. Especially if the character is talking in sleng and the voice-over is a book language. “Suck my cock” changed into “Sesaj mojega petelina” simply would not do.

And yet, they are still doing it. And mind you, they got money. So it`s not a cost issue. Seriously, what is cheaper? Create subtitles or do a voice-over?

And what exactly is wrong with subtitles? You hear a new language, you understand what it means (or hope that the subtitles are the reflection of the voice) and everybody walks away happy. Plus, with the rise of your knowledge of a certain language, you can see where the translators did a poor job and laugh about it.

With synchronization, all of that flies out the window and you are stuck in a one-language box only. A very small box.