In Germany big English language films tend to be dubbed into German for mainstream audiences. The only way for German cinema goers to see films in their original versions (marked as OV on the marquee) is to go to smaller artier places. It's a fact of life for them. It's not something most tourists know about.
I certainly didn't.
I was staying on Bismarckstrasse in Dusseldorf near the Hauptbannhof and the poster for Shutter Island caught my eye. The 4th collaboration between Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio after Gangs Of New York, the Aviator and The Departed. I'd been travelling around Europe for a while so didn't know much about it other than it was adapted from a Dennis Lehane book. I'd enjoyed Ben Affleck's adaption of his book Gone Baby Gone and expected more of the same, another Boston set crime drama. Little did I know I was walking into a complex, intense psychological horror drama. That I'd be watching in German.
I spoke no German.
The girl at the ticket counter gave me no clue it was in German. Why would she? It's not her job to tell foolish tourists what's going on. The title of the film was Shutter Island. Had it been Der Shutter Island alarm bells might have rang but us English speaking denizens of the world tend to expect the world to bend to our will. The ads started. In German. I was unfazed, more interested in my popcorn and my blue slushie than any ad. Then the trailers started. Kick-Ass, a film I'd been looking forward to for ages. Huh. It was in German. Something primal was starting to itch deep in my brain, a vague oh no feeling. Then a trailer for Green Zone followed, that long forgotten Matt Damon film. Oh christ. You can guess how it went.
Then the lights went down.
Leo and Mark Ruffalo were on a ferry heading out to sea. They were talking away to themselves. The audience was rapt. Scorsese's visuals had them hooked already. It looked great. I hadn't a fucking clue what was going on. And for some bizarre reason I sat there for the next 135 minutes watching it all. It made no sense. Two detectives, solving some kind of crime, the war was involved, someone turned to ash for some reason. I remember feeling vaguely uncomfortable in the middle of an all German audience when Scorsese gave us a loving crafted and insanely violent panning shot of German troops being executed in a prison camp. Then it was over. What the fuck. Six months later when it hit DVD and I was home it finally made sense but anytime I even hear mention of it now I remember sitting in that audience feeling insanely baffled.
It was great fun in fairness.
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