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The Translators

Got along to an advance screening of The Translators at the Luna in Leederville a few nights ago. It's a mystery set in the world of literary publishing and the story takes a little getting the old bonce around. Broadly, a group of nine translators are seconded to a high security bunker to translate the third book in a massively popular series, Daedalus, written by the reclusive Oscar Brach (strangely subtitled as 'Bach'). Pretty soon, it's found that 10 pages have somehow been smuggled out to the Internet, setting off a series of events that land the publisher Eric Angstrom, among others, in shtuck.

Angstrom is played by the hawk-nosed yet serpentine, Lambert Wilson, who has a swathe of shite films to his credit (Babylon A.D., anyone?). This is the best film I've seen him in, but I'm certainly not a Wilson completist, so there must be other passable works. Some of the translators are reasonably well known, especially in their home 'markets'. Olga Kurylenko plays the Russian; Ricardo Scamarcio, the Italian; Sidse Babett Knudsen, the Dane and Eduardo Noriega, the Spaniard. Alex Lawther, who was in an especially downbeat Dark Mirror episode plays the English translator, and he's ok but I didn't take to him, not sure why.

The whodunit aspect of the film soon becomes a 'howdunit', as the films twists and wriggles its way through several plot crevices, all the while attempting to keep the audience on their toes and in their seats at the same time. All this is fairly well handled by director, Regis Roinsard in only his second feature, but it didn't have the same style, or at least humour, as something like Rian Johnson's Knives Out or even those old Poirot films from the 70s. There are more things going on than I was probably aware of, for example, the significance of the Proust novel as a kind of money shot, or the apparent focus on one character, to deflect attention, perhaps?

The Translators has a lot going on and there are some tense moments sprinkled throughout. A mini-heist scene lifts the pace around the halfway mark and there's a clever Mexican standoff where different languages are utilised for extrication. Ultimately though, I was left a bit underdone by this film. Maybe it was trying to be a bit too clever, maybe some of the cast weren't quite right or possibly some parts were underwritten. It's not a bad film but as Ween once said, I can't put my finger on it.

See also:

For similar captivity themes, try the German film, The Experiment (2001) directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel, and for more translation, albeit the Alien kind, check out Denis Villeneuve's brilliant, Arrival (2016).

SPOILERS IN (short) POD!!

Listen to "The Translators" on Spreaker.

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