Running heading: Understanding Foreign Films
Understanding Foreign Films
Name
Course
Instructor
3rd November, 2010
The use of Films is very important in channeling life lessons to the current generation. From estimation, approximately half of the total world’s population is comprised of young people who have adopted the rampant developing technology. When an individual or rather a company wants to channel some information, that information entailed in the film must cover all the targeted individuals, be they young or old.
Fireproof is a title of a movie that I once watched and have always enjoyed repeating it day in day out. Its actor is Kirk Cameron who plays a vital role throughout the movie. The movie is very educative and majorly focuses on the young married couples. In it, we find young people who happened to be tied in marriage. The couples undergo many challenges as portrayed in the film. In it, the husband sees as if his efforts are being unappreciated by his wife while on the other hand, the wife considers the same. In it, the husband works in the fire station where he helps rescue peoples lives incase of fire disasters. Back home, the wife seems not to be happy since his husband does not give her attention with an excuse of rescuing people. Misunderstanding erupts at the course of the movie and Kirk sees filing a divorce as the next best alternative. However, this option of divorce does not come to pass since Kirk has principled and intelligent parents. The parents gives Kirk some to do hand book which he had to follow for forty days so as to sort up the frequent quarrels, before contemplating a divorce. At the end of this film, we realize that the advice given by kirks parents helps him a lot and spares his marriage life from being shuttered by the devil. Just as an overview of the movie, many lessons are entailed. Such lessons range from respecting one another, respecting God who is the provider of all things, taking advices from friends among other important lessons.
Just like any other established and operating industries, film industry has got obstacles or rather challenges. Such challenges are recognized internationally since the purpose of shooting a movie is usually to address issues to people all over the world and eventually for the profit realization purposes. One of the major challenges faced by such foreign films is the language barrier. Not all the worlds’ population understands one particular language. For instance the above mentioned movie is acted in English language. This therefore implies that the same movie must be translated to other languages that are recognized by the intended customers. The whole process of translation is cumbersome and also expensive indeed. Another case arises, more especially in African continent, where elements of illiteracy are still traced. The audience therefore may not understand the context of the movie at all. Lack of proper understanding therefore indicates that the movie will not be appreciated as expected by the shooting industry (Ebert, 2009).
Religion is also another obstacle that faces the film making industry. The world comprises different religions which have got incompatible goals. The incompatibility of goals is usually as a result of worshipping different Gods. From the example given, fireproof, the actors do align themselves to their religion, which is Christianity. It therefore implies that the film enjoys a larger market from the Christians. The question hereby arises, what of other religions such as Muslims? Generally, the movie itself has good lessons that are applicable in day to day lives. However, audience from other religions such as Muslims will consider themselves as having been sidelined and wouldn’t bother to purchase the movie.
Use of hard language is also another obstacle faced by customers in understanding and appreciating foreign films. Some movies are acted in such a way that the language used has got a lot of difficult vocabularies that keeps the audience totally offside. In the event, the film industry fails to realize its sales target since majority of the customers normally wants films that are easy to understand and requires less interpretations.
With such obstacles having been a threat to most film makers, appropriate measures have been put in place to overcome it. The movie industries have gone an extra mile of shooting movies in different major languages that makes it suitable for purchase all over the world. Currently, many industries prepares there budget appropriately to ensure that they do not run short of capital during the making of the film. Successes of this measure of articulating the language barrier has seen many movie industries make huge profits as a result of better purchases (Sachleben & Yenerall, 2004).
In addition, the film makers have further implemented a policy on religion. Such policy advices the movie makers to come up with films that is acceptable with all individuals in the society. This advocates for the involvement of all the religions, hence there will be no particular party deeming the film as having sidelined them. When it comes to competition, the movie makers have laid down strategies that ensure healthy competition in the markets. Competing firms are advised not to portray their counterparts in a negative way that will brood hatred not only amongst them but also the customers. To sum up, filmmakers have further gone a step ahead in shooting movies that accommodates all generations. Currently, most of the movies acted go hand in hand with the society’s traditions and norms, thus boosting its demand in the markets (Segrave, 2004).
References
Ebert, R. (2009). Roger Ebert's Movie Yearbook 2010; ROGER EBERT'S MOVIE YEARBOOK.
Kansas City: Andrews McMeel Publishing.
Sachleben, M. & Yenerall, K. (2004). seeing the bigger picture: understanding politics through
film & television; Volume 9 of Politics, media & popular culture: New York: Peter Lang.
Segrave, K. (2004). Foreign films in America: a history. North Carolina: McFarland.
