Trailers Undone

Here’s the trailer.

Usually, American trailers for foreign films are all either a) all in the original language, with English subtitles, or b) edited so that you never actually hear the actors speak, but instead you hear only the American voice-over, a technique designed to keep you from realizing that the movie is not in your native language.

Here, we have something very unusual. The trailer is in French, there are English subtitles, and there is a voice-over in English, and there are additional narrative titles in English to lead you through the trailer (”It was the wedding of a lifetime,” etc.).

This is because the movie is packaged (much like Asia Argento herself) as exotic fare for Americans. Face it, you saw the trailer but you have no idea what this movie is about, except that Asia Argento is hot and foreign. People will go to see this movie because they want to feel honest when they say that they only read Playboy for the articles.

One man…two women, one an angel, the other a diabolical schemer…historical French drama…nobody sees this trailer without thinking of Dangerous Liaisons. Nobody. And that’s not an accident.