chorizo=jerky, or: what i learned from pan's labyrinth

[arguchik]

well...pan's labyrinth (which should have been called the faun's labyrinth, since the featured faun is not pan) is one film that deserves pretty much any award it got. it makes sense that it won oscars for cinematography, makeup, and art direction. i'm happy to see that the national society of film critics gave it best picture.

simplemente magnifico.
simply gorgeous.

i got the feeling that the subtitle translations weren't always the best. one thing i caught: in one scene, this evil captain guy pulls stuff out of a bag. in reference to one item, he says "chorizo," but the subtitle says "dried meat." yeah...same thing, right?

Comments

[rwx.livejournal.com]

isn't spanish (as opposed to mexican) chorizo dried and cured like jerky?

[arguchik.livejournal.com]

yeah...but still...

[arguchik.livejournal.com]

p.s. pursuant to our conversation at the C-I pub awhile back, this article in the NYT made me think of you, and i thought i'd comment you the link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/25/dining/25glut.html?em&ex=1185854400&en=336422fca80cd5fb&ei=5087%0A

[writerpunk.livejournal.com]

it's a stressful but very good film...

and even with my limited spanish... there were some interesting elisions and glosses...

i actually found el capitan to be a bit too one dimensional... too fascist for fascist sake... but perhaps that's important as it is...

[arguchik.livejournal.com]

yes...stressful. i agree about the "broad strokes" characterization of the captain character--and the mother, too, actually. i really liked both mercedes and the faun, though. i found both to be delightfully complex, but i suppose they needed the pure good and pure evil characters around them as foils, in order for their complexity to scan as such. which says something...

ofelia i thought was great. i particularly liked that she ate the grapes, for some reason.

[jeremyrichards.livejournal.com]

That was intentional, actually, though I don't know if I agree with Guillermo del Toro that you can't have both a multidimensional world and complex characters. He says in the commentary that he wanted the characters to be archetypes, that more subtlety would be too unwieldy.

Speaking of the commentary, del Toro's English is excellent, so you would assume he approved the translations?

[crash66.livejournal.com]

chorizo is a sausage, but it doesn't have to be dried. I has red peppers in it and often paprika, and it's made from pork.

Jerky? no I wouldn't go there, more like summer sausage that isn't as scary.

[arguchik.livejournal.com]

yeah, up til now i've only ever had the fresh variety (which is extremely yummy, i might add!). i knew that they also made smoked and dried varieties, but i didn't know that the smoked/dried stuff was specifically spanish (as opposed to mexican) until rwx commented to that effect.