Back in 2016 we discussed Movies Featuring Linguists, Linguistics and Languages; I’ve just seen a movie that rates a prominent place in any such list, the terrific 1974 Japanese police procedural Castle of Sand (砂の器, Suna no utsuwa). It’s slightly marred by the fact that one of the important characters is a pianist/composer, which means that we spend far too long listening to gloopy wallpaper music of the type moviemakers consider “classical,” but other than that it’s brilliantly done (and can be seen at The Criterion Channel, which [plug!] costs less per month than the price of a movie and will satisfy the cravings of any cinephile). What brings it here, though, is a scene in which our hero, a dogged Tokyo detective, visits the National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics to ask a dialect expert about zuzu-ben (rendered in the subtitles as “Z accent”), a classic marker of Tōhoku dialect. The scene features dialogue like “What are phonemes?” and a comparison of the similar speech patterns of widely separated regions. I watched it a couple of times just for the thrill.
One thing that bothers me, though, is the English title. Suna no utsuwa doesn’t mean ‘castle of sand’; suna is ‘sand,’ all right, but utsuwa “literally means ‘vessel’ or ‘container’, and commonly refers to any kind of cup, plate, dish, or pot.” At the start of the movie we see a boy shaping beach sand into a vessel and pouring water into it. There is no castle nor anything castle-like, and I am mystified by the mistranslation — if you don’t like “Vessel of Sand” or the like, why not just call it something entirely different and more suggestive of the kind of movie it is? If Jean-Pierre Melville had made it, it would have been called, say, Le trimard (and been considerably shorter). But I guess both versions of the title are part of the same pseudo-poetic impulse that gave us the gloopy music.
Judging by the movie’s IMDB page, a lot of countries went for something like “Castle of Sand”. Germany (“Zerbrechliches Schicksal” — as usual at the time, the German title has nothing to do with the original title) and France (“Le vase de sable”) are among the few exceptions.
Vive la France! At least it’s accurate. I presume the castles were based on the English version.
Was the boy making a mud pie, i.e. a sand castle made by casting from a vessel?
No, he piled up the sand in a sort of volcano shape.
Naming the movie something like “Dish of Sand” probably would create more confusion. As we know, the people who decide on foreign movie titles are given total freedom: “Spirited Away” is not a translation of 「千と千尋の神隠し」either, but there you go.
I believe there is a scene in the movie where a container made of sand collapses when water is poured into it. So something about humans as earthen vessels? And sand castles are famously destroyed with a bit of water, so this could just be a cultural translation, as per my example of Spirited Away above.
By the way, the usual Japanese term for sand castle is 砂上の楼閣 (Sand Tower).
And sand castles are famously destroyed with a bit of water
So why not “Sand Castles”? The phrase they went with does not connote anything.
Yes, Sand Castles probably would have been better.
On second thought, I have often heard the phrase “castles made of sand” used as a metaphor for a construction built on something weak (false beliefs, etc), and Castle of Sand might convey that meaning more clearly than Sand Castles.
I know “castles in the air” and houses “built on sand” or “made of straw”; but not “castles made of sand”.
mollymooly: See (or hear) Hendrix, J. (1967).
I didn’t know that “gloopy” can be applied to music, but I guess anything can (“characterized by its deep color and intense fruity flavors with a velvety texture”). It sounds like глупый in Russian, which means “stupid”, a good addition to the bouquet.
The Russian may have subconsciously influenced my use of it!
gloopy “stupid” is among the Russian loans in Nadsat slang in Burgess’s “A Clockwork Orsnge”.
As the Wikipedia article points out, the movie is based on a novel by the celebrated Japanese mystery / detective novelist Seichō Matsumoto (松本清張). If the movie is brilliant, it is due to Matsumoto’s excellent plot creation. The key to solving the mystery in one of his works, 点と線 (“Point and Line”), is based entirely on detailed analysis of train timetables. Matsumoto was a favourite of the Japanese linguist Hideo Teramura (寺村秀夫) (1928-1990), whose classes I attended in the mid-70s.
The novel Suna no utsuwa has, it appears, been translated into English as “Inspector Imanishi Investigates”.
… we spend far too long listening to gloopy wallpaper music of the type moviemakers consider “classical,”
Wallpaper music is new to me. Is this what we used to call elevator music or dentist office music? Are there different terms in other Englishes? (I speak American English and am on the old side of the ledger.)
railway timetable alibi was enough of a mystery subgenre to have been parodied by Monty Python and others
Train timetables play a big role in Christie’s detective novels. The plots would be considered unrealistic here, since the trains of the Deutsche Bahn are infamous for being late.
Is this what we used to call elevator music or dentist office music?
I knew it as Muzak.
So I guess Matsumoto imported it to Japan? I had no idea. (Someone still felt it was worth translating into English, it seems).
The trailer has some music; I don’t know how representative.
music of the type moviemakers consider “classical,” — yes I can hear that.
“classical” is not what I think of with muzak/elevator music: that would be more big band hits from the 1940’s/50’s but played by a small ensemble with electronic keyboard. (‘Sailing by’ is more-or-less a spoof of the genre.) Or more modernly Beatles hits (soundalikes).
“gloopy” suggests Tchaikowsky-alike or the worst parody of Rachmaninov.
Wallpaper music is new to me. Is this what we used to call elevator music or dentist office music?
I don’t get any google hits, so I guess I invented it. I didn’t mean elevator music (Muzak) as such, rather the sort of colorful, sweeping, indistinguishable music you get in Hollywood movies like Spellbound or Humoresque. Passion, upswept strings, you know the sort of thing.
“gloopy” suggests Tchaikowsky-alike or the worst parody of Rachmaninov.
Yes, AntC knows what I mean.
Music for airports
Japanese Wikipedia has jogged my memory. The key is that people boarding two separate trains at Tokyo station were visible to each other from the other train, but there was only a window of several minutes in the day when that was possible. A slight twist on the timetable alibi convention.
That’s the same key plot element in “4.50 from Paddington” by Christie. By chance I read it again recently.
Wallpaper music at Collins. (Seems to be Brit English?)
figurative Sense 4 at wikti “Anything that serves as a background or part of the surroundings.” Quotes from this century, but I’m sure the figurative sense is much older; etymonline isn’t helping.
Ah, so it is a thing. Thanks!
you get in Hollywood movies like […] Humoresque
Ah, you mean “Passengers will please refrain from using restrooms while the train is in the station, darling I love you.”
Seems to be Brit English
D’uh of course: Brits don’t have “elevators”; also they tend not to have lifts with music in. Supermarket/Shopping Centre music. (Except at this time of year bloody jolly Carols. The folk condemned to work inside must be ready to strangle Santa’s little helpers by the end of a day.)
For a movie it would be more contrived to underpin the dramatic action.
Gloopy, adj Descriptive term for LP albums such as Andre Kostelanetz-Greatest Hits.
A new translation of “Points and Lines”.
“castle of sand” is maybe better than “sand castle” b/c it makes the title an idiomatic expression like “house of cards” or “pack of lies” – the reader imagines the solid structure first, then the second noun pulls the rug out from underneath.
and i have no problem with “wallpaper music” it reminds me of a funny term my students use for limp techno-pop: “H&M Music”
“castle of sand” is maybe better than “sand castle” b/c it makes the title an idiomatic expression like “house of cards” or “pack of lies”
But it’s not an idiomatic expression! Plus it doesn’t render the Japanese!
Tōhoku dialect
An unfortunate pair of sentences starts the second paragraph of the Christianity in Tōhoku subsection:
#
Further, once Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543–1616) outlawed Christianity, Masamune reversed his position, and though disliking it, let Ieyasu persecute Christians in his domain. For 270 years, Tōhoku remained a place of tourism, trade and prosperity.
#
Persecution: it brings tourism, trade, and prosperity!
Tōhoku dialect is maligned and ridiculed in Japan because of its rustic and backward associations. The Japanese translator of Harry Potter chose Tōhoku dialect to translate the rustic speech of Hagrid.
This is a good introduction to the way that the dialect is viewed in Japan.
Many years ago there was a Japanese advertisement in which an older male Tōhoku speaker said Chukareta be, supposedly the Tōhoku dialect version of Tsukareta yo (“I’m tired”). Poking fun in this way was typical of most Japanese people’s ignorance about Tōhoku dialect. Actually, the Tōhoku dialect word for “tired” is kowē, which in standard Japanese is pronounced kowai and means “afraid”. The semantic link appears to be the original meaning of the morpheme kowa, which was “hard” or “stiff” (and still is in words like kowabaru “be/become stiff”).
This is a good introduction to the way that the dialect is viewed in Japan.
Thanks, that was an interesting read.
Agree with AG. “Sandcastle” is an ordinary word, the kind of thing children build on the beach. “Castle of sand” sounds like an idiomatic expression, and is more dignified and abstract than “sandcastle”. As AG said, it conveys a sense of fragility and impermanence, just like the expression “house of cards”. The image is of a structure simply melting away in water. “Suna no utsuwa” conveys a similar impression; a container made of sand is useless for anything as it will simply dissolve in water.
A brief article on Yamagata dialect, a subgroup of Tōhoku dialect. Some of the expressions given are Tōhoku-wide; others are peculiar to Yamagata.
As the article points out, an American called Daniel Kahn commoditised his mastery of Yamagata dialect for his role as a
performing gaijinTV personality. The Japanese love local dialects but have a tendency to pigeonhole them (Kansai dialect is the language of comedic dialogue, Tōhoku dialect is the language of rubes…).Afterthought on “castle of sand”: Perhaps “vessel of sand” would be a more accurate translation, but it would give the impression of being a ship rather than a container.
“Suna no utsuwa” conveys a similar impression; a container made of sand is useless for anything as it will simply dissolve in water.
That would be fine if “castle of sand” was an actual phrase that conveyed that, but it’s not and it doesn’t, plus it adds the distracting implications of “castle.”
Like Attic and Doric.
Or Texan.
In the early 90s, some Donald Duck animated films shown here in Germany were dubbed with the Beagle Boys speaking Sächsisch. I thought that was pretty mean-spirited. I couldn’t see any motivation for it except for political spitefulness after the Wall fell.
“Made of sand”
Yes, that would be much better.