'Netflix butchered English subtitles of Thallumaala'

Thallumaala, Khalid Rahman's blockbuster trendsetter, was released on Netflix on September 11. It was the streaming platform's Onam gift for all those who couldn't find time to catch this 'high on style' feast in theatres. However, less than 24 hours after the movie's release, the team behind Thallumaala has come out against Netflix for 'butchering' the English subtitles.

Fill In The Blanks, the firm which did the subtitling work of Thallumaala, issued a statement on Instagram and Facebook, on Monday, expressing its disappointment about Netflix's unprecedented meddling, which was immediately shared by the movie's writer Muhsin Parari, among others.

Anju and Shyam Narayanan T K of Fill In The Blanks said in their statement: "The English subtitles of the movie 'Thallumaala', which we delivered to the Netflix team, were reviewed line-by-line and approved by the creative director and one of the writers, Mr Muhsin Parari. However, we are deeply saddened to inform you that the current subtitles published on Netflix are a substantially edited, watered-down, butchered version of our work."

The movie, starring Tovino Thomas, Kalyani Priyadarshan, Shine Tom Chacko and Lukman, among others, recently entered the Rs 50-crore club in its theatrical run.

Talking to Onmanorama, Anju, one of the subtitlers of Thallumaala, said: "We are not any sort of authority when it comes to language. Being a relatively newer company (started two years ago), whenever changes are made to our content, we tend to think it could be because there are errors in our output. But with Thallumaala, that was not the case. Both Shyam and I worked on the movie with great attention. As it was verified and approved by Muhsin sir, we were quite confident of the content."

Calling it a delicate job, Anju believes translating content comes with a certain amount of pressure. “You are translating someone's original work. It is imperative that you do maximum justice to it. Even the smallest mistake in interpretation can take away the soul of a scene."

According to Anju and Shyam, several nuances they included in the subtitles went missing in the Netflix version, especially the songs. "They've heavily toned down the songs' subtitles to their literal meanings and made them soulless," said their statement.

The subtitling of the song 'Ole Melody' was one such instance, says Anju. “Muhsin sir has said during several promotion interviews of Thallumaala that the politics of the movie lies in the song Ole Melody. The line 'sama gama sama garima' talks about equality for all. It is not easy to translate Muhsin sir's lyrics as he loves to play with words. So we took great care not to lose the true meaning of the lyrics. However, Netflix just did away with that line's translation and left it blank.”

A number of such instances disappointed the team gravely, forcing them to post a statement expressing their sadness.

“Subtitling, being a creative work, must consider the culture, humour, connotations and local nuances of both the source and target languages. We eagerly wait for the OTT release of Malayalam movies because that's when we get to show people our work. But when it has been meddled with to such an extent, it ceases to be our content and all that hard work just goes down the drain,” says Anju.

Moreover, the team finds it unfair and unethical that Netflix edited the subtitles without any consent from Fill In The Blanks. “We are not looking to start a fire. We want answers. Why did this happen? Was there anything wrong on our part? What needs to change? It's only fair we know this much at least," says Anju.

Talking about the massive response to their post, Anju said the whole team is overwhelmed at the moment. “As I said, we shared the post out of sheer disappointment. When Muhsin sir shared it, our post got great visibility. I've seen many friends of mine in the subtitling industry posting about how their work was butchered. However, they struggle to get any visibility. Many others in the industry called us to express solidarity and said they were happy we weren't keeping mum about this.”

Not Netflix's first time tampering with subtitles

This is not the first instance when Netflix has fumbled with subtitles. When the now internationally acclaimed Korean series 'Squid Game' came out, many Korean fans said Netflix's "botched" subtitles changed the show's meaning for English-speaking viewers.

One such Korean fan, Youngmi Mayer, claimed that the closed-caption English subtitles were "so bad" that the original meaning was often lost.

In a Twitter post, she said: "The dialogue was so well written and zero of it was preserved (in the subtitles)." She even gave several examples of the mistranslation in a viral TikTok video.

Fill In The Blanks is a team of creative linguists who offer content-related services, especially subtitles for movies and script translations. At present, there are four subtitle artists working in Fill In The Blanks -- Anju, Aparna, Jemsy Claris Alex and Shyam Narayanan TK.

Besides Thallumaala, Fill In The Blanks has done subtitling for movies such as 'Bheemante Vazhi', 'Kaaval', 'Veyil', 'Twenty One Grams', 'Sundari Gardens', and 'Pathonpatham Noottandu', among others. Sibi Malayil's 'Kothu' is their next project.

Read Subash Babu's piece on the significance of subtitles: Dress Circle | Lost in Translation: Subtitles can make or break a film.