Lost, found and retrieved in translation

The translation of multilingual films inevitably results in the leveling out and flattening of linguistic diversity, leaving any geo-social connotation attached to the characters for individual viewers to work out for themselves. Often such films are serious and tackle significant social and political issues, (e.g. Knocking on Heaven’s Door, Thomas Jahn Germany/Netherlands/Belgium, 1997; and Nordrand, Barbara Albert, Austria, 1999). But what happens when a multilingual films adopts linguistic diversity to create a comic effect? Translating verbally expressed humour from one language into another, constitutes one of the trickiest problems facing operators in the Screen Translation industry – so what if the problem is multiplied by more source languages? Taking examples from the Italian version of L’auberge épagnole/ L’ appartamento spagnolo (France/Spain; Cédric Kaplisch, 2002) I will examine how verbally expressed humour and stereotypes from seven different languages and cultures are conveyed interlingually and to what effect.